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CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE 
SOCIAL   ORDER 


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CHRISTIANITY  AND   THE 
SOCIAL  ORDER 


jj^^^ 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 

MELBOURNE  ^ 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE 
SOCIAL  ORDER 


BY 


R.   J.   CAMPBELL,   M.A. 

MINISTER  OF  THE  CITY  TEMPLE,  LONDON 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  NEW  THEOLOGY,"  "NEW  THEOLOGY 

SERMONS,"  ETC. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1907 

AU  rights  restrvtd 


v\^?.^, 


G^ 


nr-^SE 


Copyright,  1907, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  December,  1907. 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


To  the  Church  and  Congregation  of 
the  City  Temple,  in  recognition  of 
the  loyalty^  charity,  and  liberality 
of  spirit  with  which  they  have  sus- 
tained their  minister  in  his  endeavour 
to  present  the  wider  gospel  to  the  time. 


172865 


INTRODUCTION 

The  following  pages  constitute  an  attempt  to 
show  the  correspondence  between  the  principles 
of  Christianity  and  those  of  modern  Socialism  — 
Socialism  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term.  They 
are  written  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  who 
believes  that  the  movement  reprobated  by  the 
Pope  on  the  one  hand,  and  dogmatic  Protestant- 
ism on  the  other,  under  the  name  of  modernism 
really  represents  a  return  to  the  primitive  Christian 
evangel,  freed  from  its  limitations  and  illusions. 
The  present  writer  regards  this  spiritual  movement, 
for  such  it  is,  as  destined  to  rescue  the  true  Chris- 
tianity from  ecclesiasticism  in  its  various  forms. 
In  the  process  it  may  work  the  overthrow  of  the 
Churches  as  we  have  them  now  —  that  is,  religious 
organisations  held  together  by  dogmatic  statements 
of  belief  rather  than  by  the  perception  of  a  practi- 
cal end  to  be  attained.  It  is  herein  maintained 
that  the  practical  end  which  alone  could  justify 
the  existence  of  Churches  is  the  realisation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  which  only  means  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  society  on  a  basis  of  mutual  helpfulness 
instead  of  strife  and  competition.  It  may  be  that 
the  modernist  movement  will  in  the  long  run  succeed 

VH 


VUl  INTRODUCTION 

in  freeing  Christianity  from  the  influences  which  have 
obscured  or  deflected  this  ideal;  or,  at  any  race, 
may  succeed  sufficiently  far  to  remove  the  distrust 
which  at  present  exists  between  many  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Socialist  movement  and  the  advanced  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  should  be  clearly  understood  that  in  the  task 
thus  attempted  I  expressly  disclaim  any  intention 
of  denying  a  place  in  the  Socialist  movement  to  all 
but  the  adherents  of  liberal  Christian  thought. 
It  is  already  patent  to  all  the  world  that  the  Social- 
ist movement  has  found  room  for  men  as  widely 
divergent  in  their  views  of  religion  as  could  well  be 
imagined.  Some  of  its  most  devoted  adherents 
are  sacerdotalists,  others  are  avowed  materialists; 
and  it  would  be  grossly  unfair  to  exclude  either. 
To  deny  a  place  in  the  Socialist  ranks  to  a  veteran 
like  the  Rev.  Stewart  Headlam  because  he  happens 
to  be  a  sacerdotalist  would  be  a  piece  of  unpardon- 
able effrontery.  The  one  thing  which  I  have  tried 
to  keep  before  me  in  these  pages  is  the  desirability 
of  showing  what  primitive  Christianity  set  out  to 
realise,  and,  therefore,  how  nearly  identical  were 
its  practical  aims  with  those  of  modern  Socialism. 
If,  in  doing  so,  I  have  felt  obliged  to  show  the  un- 
historical  character  of  the  sacerdotalist  position,  I 
have  been  no  less  frank  in  showing  the  impossibili- 
ties and  illogicalities  of  orthodox  Protestantism. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  regard  the  Catholic  idea  of  a 
visible  universal  fellowship  as  nearer  to  the  spirit 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

both  of  ancient  Christianity  and  modem  Socialism 
than  is  individualistic  Protestantism. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  a  word  as  to 
the  way  in  which  I  have  come  to  be  identified  with 
the  Socialist  movement.  The  first  and  most  obvi- 
ous influence  in  this  direction  was  the  study  of 
Christian  origins,  which  led  me  gradually  but  irre- 
sistibly to  see  that  the  first  Christian  preachers  did 
not  know  of  any  other  gospel  than  that  of  a  universal 
brotherhood  on  earth.  I  have  never  been  anything 
else  than  a  liberal  in  theology  —  all  assertions  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding  —  but  my  way  of 
presenting  the  truth  in  the  earlier  years  of  my  minis- 
try was  necessarily  less  clear  and  coherent  than  at 
present,  for  it  rested  too  much  on  the  other-worldism 
of  conventional  Christian  preaching.  The  realisa- 
tion that  this  other-worldism  was  totally  absent 
from  primitive  Christian  thought  forced  me,  like 
so  many  others,  upon  what  was  practically  the 
Socialist  position  without  any  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Socialist  movement  itself.  I  now 
regard  Socialism  as  the  practical  expression  of  Chris- 
tian ethics  and  the  evangel  of  Jesus. 

JBut  a  further  and  more  immediately  effective 
influence  came  into  existence  as  follows.  In  the 
autumn  of  1904  I  wrote  an  article  in  the  National 
Review  on  the  question  of  Sunday  observance,  in 
which  I  pointed  out  certain  sinister  tendencies  of 
the  time,  particularly  among  the  working  classes. 
The  result  was  a  newspaper  storm,  in  which  a 


X  INTRODUCTION 

number  of  clergy  and  nonconformist  ministers 
played  a  discreditable  part.  Many  of  them  went 
out  of  their  way  to  make  my  strictures  the  sub- 
ject of  sermons  in  which  they  fulsomely  praised 
the  working-man  and  credited  him  with  every 
imaginable  virtue.  The  object  of  this  kind  of  syco- 
phantic proceeding  was  obvious,  and,  probably 
for  that  reason,  it  did  not  succeed.  I  was  asked 
to  address  a  mass  meeting  of  Trades  Union  repre- 
sentatives, and  repeat  my  observations  face  to  face 
with  the  workers  themselves  and  listen  to  what  they 
had  to  say  in  reply.  I  did  so,  with  the  result,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  the  working-men  were  able  for 
the  first  time  to  hear  my  actual  words  instead  of 
garbled  newspaper  reports  and  slanderous  pulpit 
versions  of  them;  while,  on  the  other,  I  realised 
that,  although  all  I  had  said  was  perfectly  true,  and 
no  one  could  really  deny  it,  I  had  not  taken  account 
of  the  working-man's  point  of  view.  The  strictures 
were  resented,  not  so  much  because  they  were  unjust, 
as  because  they  were  made  by  a  man  who  did  not 
share  the  privations  and  disabilities  of  those  with 
whom  he  found  fault.  I  determined  to  do  my  best 
to  get  to  see  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
unprivileged  majority,  and  I  hope  I  have,  to  a 
certain  extent,  succeeded.  Ever  since  that  memo- 
rable meeting  I  have  been  more  or  less  closely  in 
touch  with  some  of  the  more  prominent  leaders 
of  the  Labour  movement  in  this  country.  In  the 
autunm  of  last  year  I  preachec}  ^  sermon  in  the 


INTRODUCTION  XI 

City  Temple  on  Christianity  and  Collectivism,  in 
which  I  declared  myself  a  Socialist.  Forthwith 
all  the  Labour  platforms  were  thrown  open  to  me. 
When  the  New  Theology  controversy  broke  out 
in  January  of  the  present  year  these  were  almost 
the  only  platforms  I  had  left.  All  my  Free  Church 
Council  engagements  were  cancelled  by  the  Churches 
themselves,  as  were  most  of  my  preaching  appoint- 
ments with  other  ecclesiastical  organisations.  Even 
where  they  were  not  cancelled  the  situation  was, 
as  a  rule,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  somewhat  strained. 
At  the  present  moment  I  am  in  the  position  of 
having  been  quietly  excluded  from  an  active  share 
in  every  Nonconformist  organisation  with  which 
I  was  formerly  connected,  with  the  exception  of  the 
City  Temple  itself.  I  do  not  complain  of  this ;  it 
has  done  me  no  harm  whatever ;  but  it  is  as  well 
for  the  public  to  know  the  facts. 

I  work  now  in  the  confident  expectation  that 
with  the  rise  of  a  younger  generation  of  able  men 
in  the  Churches  themselves  —  men  of  liberal  out- 
look in  religion,  and  inspired  by  the  social  con- 
sciousness —  I  may  live  to  see  the  time  when  the 
Socialist  movement,  realised  from  the  spiritual 
point  of  view,  will  have  laid  hold  of  Nonconformity 
as  it  is  already  laying  hold  of  the  Anglican  church. 
The  present  official  heads  of  Nonconformity  cannot 
expect  to  boycott  a  movement  for  ever  by  the  futile 
expedient  of  boycotting  this  man  and  that  among 
its  representatives.    The  time  will  come  when  the 


Xll  INTRODUCTION 

wider  theology  and  the  Socialist  gospel  will  be  seen 
to  be  one  and  the  same,  and  until  it  does  come  I 
offer  myself,  with  all  the  little  power  I  possess, 
to  the  service  of  every  young  man  who  is  trying 
to  make  his  way  against  the  tide  of  prejudice  and 
obscurantism  with  which  this  joint  movement  is 
at  present  assailed.  It  is  but  little  that  one  man 
can  do  except  to  help  where  opportunity  affords, 
in  the  true  spirit  of  comradeship,  the  causes  that 
most  need  helping.  One  cannot  do  more,  and 
would  not  willingly  do  less. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  fAGB 

I.    The  Churches  and  the  Masses  .       .       .  i 

II.    The  Kingdom  of  God:  I.  In  Jewish  History  21 

III.  The  Kingdom   of  God:    II.   In  Primitive 

Christianity 47 

IV.  The  Kingdom  of  God:    II.    In  Primitive 

Christianity 88 

V.    The  Kingdom  of  God  :  III.  In  Present-day 

Christianity 120 

VI.    The  Common   Objective   of   Christianity 

AND  Socialism 147 

VII.    The  Socialising  of  Natural  Resources    .  176 

VIII.    The  Socialising  of  Industry       .        .        .201 

IX.    The  Socialised  State:  1 231 

X.    The  Socialised  State:  II 259 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE 
SOCIAL  ORDER 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE  MASSES 

The  decline  of  church-going.  —  We  are  to-day 
confronted  by  the  startling  fact  that  in  practically 
every  part  of  Christendom  the  overwhelming  major- 
ity of  the  population  is  alienated  from  Christianity 
as  represented  by  the  churches.  In  our  own  country 
nearly  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  adult  population 
remains  permanently  out  of  touch  with  organised 
religion.  Broadly  speaking,  it  is  true  that  only  a 
section  of  the  middle  class  ever  attends  church  at  all; 
the  workers,  as  a  body,  absent  themselves;  the  pro- 
fessional and  upper  classes  do  the  same.  Not  so 
very  long  ago,  attendance  at  church  was  held  to  be 
a  social  necessity,  a  sort  of  hall  mark  of  respecta- 
bility; it  is  not  so  now.  A  professional  or  business 
man  can  be  just  as  sure  of  success  without  church- 
going  as  he  can  with  it;  no  stigma  attaches  to 
abstention.  The  artisan  class  not  only  remains 
aloof  from,  but  even  contemptuous  of,  churches  and 
preachers;  no  appeal  ever  produces  so  much  as  a 
ripple  on  the  surface  of  their  indifference.    As  soon 


2  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

as  the  children  in  our  Sunday  schools  reach  ado- 
lescence they  become  lost  to  religious  influences,  or, 
at  any  rate,  the  male  portion  of  them  drifts  away. 
In  any  ordinary  church  service  women  form  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  worshippers.  There 
are  several  ways  of  accounting  for  this,  chief  among 
which  is  the  fact  that  for  the  most  part  women  have 
not  yet  come  to  feel,  as  men  must  feel,  the  dissonance 
between  pulpit  Christianity  and  prevailing  economic 
conditions  in  the  modem  world.  But  women  are 
coming  to  take  their  place  in  business  and  in  the 
professions;  and  the  more  this  tendency  develops, 
the  more  certain  is  it  that  women  will  stay  away 
from  church  as  men  are  doing.  Of  course  it  is  ob- 
vious that,  even  already,  the  women  who  compose 
the  congregations  in  most  places  of  worship  are  but 
a  small  minority  of  their  sex. 

On  the  Continent  this  falling  away  of  the  people 
from  the  churches  is  more  marked  than  in  this 
country.  Educated  Germans  frequently  express 
their  astonishment  on  coming  to  England  at  the  fact 
that  so  many  people  go  to  church.  This  is  a  phe- 
nomenon to  which  they  are  quite  unaccustomed  at 
home,  and  the  reason  for  the  difference  is  fairly 
simple.  In  this  country  the  social  life  of  the  lower 
middle  classes  centres  to  a  considerable  extent  around 
the  church.  The  church  is  the  club  or  pubhc-house, 
the  place  to  which  people  must  go  in  order  to  meet 
one  another  and  enjoy  one  another's  company.  In 
Germany  this  is  not  so;    the  ordinary  centre  of 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE  MASSES  3 

social  life  is  of  quite  a  different  kind,  with  the 
consequence  that  people  do  not  feel  any  need  for 
the  church  as  a  meeting-place.  Once  let  the  same 
set  of  conditions  be  estabhshed  here,  and  we  shall 
have  just  the  same  result;  the  middle  class  will  do 
what  other  classes  have  already  done,  they  will  stay 
away  from  church.  At  present,  in  many  districts 
the  division  of  classes  is  plainly  marked  by  the  fact 
that  the  artisans  meet  at  the  alehouse  while  those  a 
little  higher  up  the  social  scale  meet  at  church.  The 
vicar  of  the  parish  is  the  head  of  one  social  set,  and 
the  nonconformist  minister  of  another,  but  neither 
of  them  touches  the  masses;  the  workers  prefer 
another  kind  of  club. 

The  Church  as  a  social  centre.  — That  this  is 
recognised  to  some  extent  is  evident  from  the  num- 
ber of  devices  which  have  been  adopted  of  late  years 
in  order  to  attract  people  to  church.  The  institu- 
tional church,  as  it  is  called,  represents  the  most 
advanced  of  these,  but  every  church  tries  to  follow 
more  or  less  on  the  same  lines.  The  list  of  the  social 
activities  of  any  vigorous  church  in  any  populous 
centre  to-day  is  lengthy  and  elaborate.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  these  various  organisations  are  similar 
to  those  existing  in  connection  with  successful  secu- 
lar institutions  of  a  social  or  educational  character; 
they  are  not  distinctively  religious  at  all.  The 
discovery  has  been  made  by  their  promoters  that 
something  of  the  kind  is  imperative  if  people  are  to 
be  got  into  the  churches.    So  we  have  literary  so- 


4  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

cieties,  gymnasia,  swimming  clubs,  photographic 
clubs,  rambling  clubs,  tennis  and  croquet  clubs, 
billiard -rooms,  smoking-rooms,  restaurants,  and  a 
host  of  others  running  in  connection  with  church 
services  and  religious  meetings.  It  would  be  foolish 
to  decry  them,  for  they  serve  a  useful  purpose,  but 
it  is  plainly  evident  that  they  have  sprung  into  exist- 
ence in  order  to  supply  what  will  be  sought  else- 
where if  the  churches  do  not  rise  to  the  occasion. 
These  things  could  flourish  just  as  well  if  there  were 
no  religious  services  whatever  associated  with  them. 
They  are  a  confession  that  the  churches  are  ceasing 
to  hold  their  own.  What  a  surprise  Richard  Bax- 
ter, John  Bunyan,  or  even  John  Wesley  or  George 
Whitefield,  would  receive  if  they  could  behold  the 
institutional  church  of  to-day !  I  was  recently  told 
of  a  philanthropic  and  public-spirited  employer  of 
labour  who  erected  a  number  of  model  dwellings 
for  his  workpeople  in  the  neighbourhood  of  one  or 
two  churches  (also  erected  by  himself),  in  the  hope 
that  the  churches  would  be  well  filled  and  be  the 
means  of  maintaining  a  high  level  of  character  and 
conduct  in  that  particular  community.  There  was 
no  public-house  in  the  district  to  act  as  counter 
attraction,  but  somehow  the  tenants  of  those  model 
dwellings  did  not  go  to  church  until  the  usual  club 
facilities  began  to  be  provided;  to  prayers  and 
sermons  they  paid  no  heed. 

All  this  is  so  well  known  that  some  may  con- 
sider it  useless  to  draw  attention  to  it.     But  as, 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE   MASSES  5 

apparently,  there  are  very  few  among  the  eccle- 
siastical leaders  of  the  day  who  are  wiUing  or  able 
to  recognise  the  root  causes  of  the  tendency  which 
everybody  admits,  it  is  as  well  to  face  the  situation 
before  proceeding  to  examine  the  whole  movement 
of  which  this  is  but  a  symptom.  It  is  absolutely 
clear  that  church-going  is  on  the  decline,  and  that 
the  ordinary  gospel  preached  from  the  pulpit  has 
no  power  to  influence  the  public.  The  curious  thing 
is  that  religious  teachers  and  administrators  should 
be  as  well  content  as  they  seem  to  be  with  this  state 
of  things,  and  should  resent  so  warmly  any  sugges- 
tion that  their  gospel  may  be  at  fault.  A  fairly 
prominent  theologian  stated  not  long  ago,  that 
while  he  did  not  deny  what  was  taking  place,  he 
was  not  in  the  least  perturbed  by  it,  for  he  believed 
that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  had  never  appealed  to 
more  than  a  remnant  of  the  world's  total  popula- 
tion, and  never  would.  This  conviction  must  have 
been  rather  comforting  to  this  particular  gentleman, 
especially  as,  like  so  many  of  his  class,  he  stands 
on  fairly  good  terms  with  the  world  in  all  ordinary 
respects.  But  for  the  rest  of  us  this  consideration 
is  not  quite  so  comforting.  If  Christianity  is  a  real 
message  to  humanity  —  a  message  of  universal  ap- 
plication, and  not  confined  to  any  one  age  or  clime 
—  it  should  not  be  losing  its  grip  to-day,  and  it  is 
impossible  for  a  lover  of  mankind  to  look  on  with 
equanimity  at  the  increasing  alienation  between 
the  churches  and  the  masses.     It  is  pathetic  —  nay, 


O  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

more  than  pathetic,  it  is  dreadful  —  to  see  the 
churches  engaged  in  strife  or  competition  with  one 
another,  while  the  great  world  passes  by  unheeding. 
It  is  only  too  sadly  true  that  very  many  churches 
are  having  a  hard  fight  to  keep  their  heads  above 
water,  and  that  the  minister's  first  aim  in  every 
such  case  is  to  make  a  business  success  of  the  insti- 
tution if  he  can.  As  often  as  not,  he  looks  with 
anything  but  favour  upon  the  establishment  of 
some  other  Christian  organisation  In  his  immediate 
neighbourhood,  even  though  it  be  of  the  same  faith 
and  order  as  his  own.  The  principle  of  competi- 
tion and  trade  rivalry  is  as  observable  here  as  any- 
where else.  The  religious  public  is  such  a  limited 
one  that  the  success  of  one  church  means  the  weak- 
ening of  another;  and  it  becomes  requisite  that  the 
minister  should  be  a  man  who  is  able  to  "draw" 
—  that  is,  draw  from  other  churches  —  the  congre- 
gation required  to  make  the  business  a  financial 
success.  Often  enough  the  minister  of  the  church 
is  regarded  as  a  salaried  business  manager,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  see  that  the  balance  comes  out  on  the 
right  side  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  that  the  estab- 
lishment holds  its  own  in  public  favour.  The  most 
saddening  feature  of  this  tendency  is  that  it  almost 
compels  a  minister  to  lose  sight  of  what  should  be 
the  main  object  of  his  ministry  and  concentrate 
instead  upon  the  task  of  keeping  his  own  footing 
in  the  swirl  of  events.  The  moment  an  institution 
begins  to  fight  for  its  own  existence,  rather  than 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE  MASSES  7 

for  the  cause  it  professes  to  serve,  it  has  forfeited 
the  right  to  continue.  If  the  number  of  churches 
in  England,  especially  Nonconformist  churches,  of 
which  this  is  true,  were  to  be  closed,  there  would  be 
a  very  considerable  thinning  of  the  present  total. 
So  far  as  the  Church  of  England  is  concerned  the 
case  is  not  so  very  different;  but  there  are  endow- 
ments to  fall  back  upon. 

The  humanitarian  activities  of  the  churches  fail 
to  arrest  the  decline.  —  It  would  not  be  fair  to  say 
that  there  is  not  plenty  of  unselfish  religious  enthu- 
siasm still  at  work  for  far  other  reasons  than  that  of 
keeping  church  doors  open.  Every  one  knows 
of  the  social  redemptive  work  of  the  Salvation  Army; 
and  there  is  hardly  any  religious  denomination  which 
has  not  its  representatives  serving  in  the  poorer 
districts  of  our  great  cities.  It  is,  perhaps,  no  in- 
justice to  other  organisations  to  .say  that  the  High 
Church  party  has  specially  distinguished  itself  in 
this  way.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  devotion  of 
some  Anglican  priests  who  go  and  live  in  the  midst 
of  the  poor  in  slum  tenements,  and  make  their  lives 
a  gift  to  the  service  of  the  suffering  and  degraded. 
They  beUeve  intensely  in  their  own  form  of  the 
Christian  evangel,  and  they  unite  it  to  a  vigorous 
social  propaganda,  which  is  more  than  some  other 
denominations  do.  But  I  am  not  sure  that  a  great 
part  of  this  devotion  is  not  waste  of  energy  —  a 
desperate  effort  to  deal  with  symptoms  instead  of 
causes.    Every  year  we  pour  money  and  men  into 


8  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

the  slums  of  London  and  other  great  cities,  without 
making  any  appreciable  difference  to  the  vast  total 
of  misery  and  crime  engendered  therein.  The 
sufferers  accept  the  service,  but  it  would  be  quite 
untrue  to  say  that  the  churches  exert  any  great  in- 
fluence of  a  distinctly  religious  kind  upon  them. 
Charity  demoraUses  the  poor,  and  gospel  missions 
fail  to  touch  them.  There  is  no  bhnking  the  fact 
that  if  the  churches  represent  Christianity,  then 
Christianity  is  rapidly  losing  its  hold  in  this  pro- 
fessedly religious  country,  as  well  as  in  every  other 
country  of  the  civihsed  world. 

And  yet  the  masses  not  hostile  to  the  religion  of 
Jesus.  —  How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  Is  it 
because  the  average  man  is  hostile  to  or  despises 
Christianity?  Not  at  all.  Of  course  we  hear  a 
great  deal  of  severe  criticism  of  Christianity,  as  it 
is  popularly  understood,  but  that  proves  nothing. 
Christianity,  as  popularly  understood,  is  not  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  Such  publications  as  those  issued 
by  the  RationaHst  Press  Association  have  an  enor- 
mous sale,  but  this  points  only  to  the  impatience 
felt  by  the  ordinary  sensible  man  of  the  world  at 
the  assumptions  of  dogmatic  theology.  But  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  takes  no  account  of  these 
things.  The  ordinary  working-man  is  not  hostile 
to  Christianity;  he  just  lets  it  alone,  because  it 
seems  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  life.  If  he 
felt  that  it  touched  his  vital  everyday  problems,  he 
would  either  definitely  embrace  it  or  definitely  reject 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE  MASSES  9 

it.  He  does  neither,  for  the  simple  reason  that, 
so  far  as  he  is  able  to  see,  the  Christianity  he  hears 
about  from  the  pulpit  and  from  church  formularies, 
has  Httle  or  nothing  to  do  with  hfe  as  he  knows  it. 
Certainly  there  is  no  hostility  to  the  name  of  Jesus. 
Probably  it  would  be  true  to  say  that  the  name  of 
Jesus  receives  an  intelligent  reverence  to-day  such 
as  it  never  received  before,  even  in  the  so-called 
ages  of  faith.  The  Jesus  of  history  has  been 
recovered  for  us,  and  has  aroused  a  new  interest 
in  the  minds  of  the  workers  of  this  country  from  the 
purely  human  and  ethical  point  of  view.  An  ex- 
amination of  a  few  of  the  addresses  given  at  men's 
meetings,  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoon  gatherings, 
and  such-like,  would  serve  to  demonstrate  this  if 
evidence  were  needed.  No,  it  is  not  Christianity 
as  represented  in  the  character  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  which  the  workers  reject,  it  is  the  Christianity 
of  the  churches. 

The  Christianity  of  the  churches  is  not  the  religion 
of  Jesus.  —  When  I  say  this,  I  am  far  from  intend- 
ing to  make  an  undiscriminating  attack  upon  the 
churches,  quite  the  contrary.  We  are  living  in  an 
age  of  rapid  transition  when  the  churches,  as  we 
have  known  them,  are  having  to  adjust  themselves 
to  new  conditions  and  new  problems,  and  have  not 
yet  realised  the  urgency  of  the  situation.  Religion 
has  always  been  conservative  in  tendency,  and 
always  will  be,  because  of  its  primary  importance  in 
human  life.    When  a  truth  has  become  associated 


lO         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

with  any  particular  form  of  statement,  men  are  slow 
to  tamper  with  the  form  for  fear  of  losing  the  truth 
itself.  In  proportion  to  their  loyalty  to  the  truth 
and  their  experience  of  its  value  is  their  reluctance 
to  part  with  the  form.  It  is  not  only  Christianity 
of  which  this  statement  holds  good;  it  is  true  of 
almost  any  religion.  And  yet  change  is  going  on  all 
the  time.  Dogma  develops,  like  everything  else  in 
human  concerns,  and  what  is  called  old  in  doctrinal 
forms  is,  as  often  as  not,  comparatively  modem. 
In  the  light  of  historical  criticism  nothing  is  much 
more  untenable  than  the  claim  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  to  have  kept  unchanged  the  faith  once  for  all 
dehvered  to  the  saints.  As  a  matter  of  fact  she  has 
done  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  it  was  impossible 
that  she  should.  It  has  often  been  said  that  the 
best  criticism  of  a  dogma  is  its  history,  and  once  we 
know  the  history  of  the  development  of  dogma  in 
the  Church  of  Rome,  we  know  beyond  question  that 
Christianity,  as  represented  by  the  oldest  church  in 
Christendom,  the  church  which  claims  to  be  the 
only  true  representative  of  apostolic  Christianity,  is 
something  quite  different  from  the  religion  of  Jesus. 
It  is  just  the  same  with  Protestantism.  There  is  no 
church  in  Christendom  to-day  which  would  be  rec- 
ognisable by  a  Christian  of  the  first  century.  This 
is  not  necessarily  to  the  discredit  of  the  churches. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  Christian  society  should 
change  its  character  and  modify  its  tenets  as  time 
went  on  if  it  was  to  live  at  all.    What  many  people 


THE   CHURCHES   AND  THE   MASSES  II 

fail  to  see  is  that  any  change  was  ever  necessary,  or 
that  primitive  Christianity  itself  could  be  less  than 
perfect.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not  we  shall  have 
to  recognise  that  the  Christianity  of  to-day  is  not 
the  Christianity  of  the  first  century.  Whether  it  is 
better  or  worse  is  not  immediately  to  the  point;  it 
is  different.  We  shall  have  to  discuss  and  admit 
the  difference,  and  then  see  whether  the  Christianity 
of  the  churches  has  forgotten  or  ignored  something 
which  the  first  Christians  knew  and  taught,  and 
which  is  as  necessary  to  the  world  now  as  it  was 
then. 

Here,  then,  is  the  plain  issue,  and  the  importance 
of  the  issue  must  be  my  justification  for  taking  up 
time  in  stating  what  everybody  already  knows  per- 
fectly well,  and  is  being  pointed  out  on  every  hand. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  one  can  dispute  the  fact 
that  the  churches  are  rapidly  losing  their  hold  on 
the  modern  mind.  This  would  not  matter  so  much 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  nothing  has  as  yet  taken 
their  place  as  an  uplifting  spiritual  influence  in  hu- 
man experience.  I  should  not  regret  for  a  single 
hour  the  decline,  or  even  the  disappearance  of  the 
churches  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  to  the  ordinary 
man  the  churches  still  stand  for  religion,  that  is  for 
the  higher  nature  of  man  in  relation  to  the  univer- 
sal order.  Give  us  something  real  and  effective  in 
place  of  this  and  the  churches  can  go.  But  as  yet 
we  have  nothing  in  their  place,  or  nothing  which 
commands  universal  attention;  and  the  worst  of  the 


12  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

situation  is  that  in  abandoning  the  churches  most 
people  think  they  are  dispensing  with  religion  too, 
whereas  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  anything  of  the  sort. 
This  tacit  belief  is  doing  incalculable  harm,  for  it 
hinders  men  from  perceiving  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  at  work  in  the  world  in  ways  of  which  the  churches 
so  far  have  taken  very  little  account.  It  is  this  mis- 
apprehension which,  I  am  convinced,  is  responsible 
for  a  great  part  of  the  so-called  materialism  of  the 
present  day.  Men  too  readily  take  for  granted  that 
Christianity  has  no  message  to  the  age  because  the 
churches  are  not  giving  it;  in  the  decay  of  the  latter 
they  seem  to  see  the  disappearance  of  the  former. 
In  the  clever  series  of  articles  which  appeared  in  the 
Clarion  some  time  ago,  and  were  reproduced  after- 
wards in  book  form  under  the  title  *'God  and  my 
Neighbour,"  this  misapprehension  was  plainly  evi- 
dent all  the  way  through.  The  writer  took  for 
granted  that  dogmatic  Christianity,  as  preached 
in  half-empty  churches  to-day,  was  Christianity  as  it 
came  into  the  world.  Many  of  Mr.  Blatchford's 
critics  insisted  that  he  was  setting  up  a  man  of 
straw  in  order  to  knock  it  down  again,  and  that 
Christian  doctrine,  as  he  stated  it,  was  not  Chris- 
tian doctrine  as  held  and  taught  by  the  enlightened 
pulpit  of  our  time.  It  cannot  honestly  be  main- 
tained, however,  that  Mr.  Blatchford  was  so  very 
far  wrong.  He  only  stated  in  plain  language  that 
which  is  implicit  in  the  conventional  pulpit  utter- 
ances of  our  time.    Few  preachers  are  now  prepared 


^AL\¥(     ^^^  CHURCHES    AND   THE   MASSES  I3 

to  say  baldly  the  things  they  profess  to  believe  about 
sin  and  redemption,  the  person  of  Christ,  death, 
judgment,  heaven,  and  hell.  Most  of  them  feel  that 
dogmatic  Christianity  is  somehow  out  of  touch  with 
the  life  of  to-day,  but  they  are  not  prepared  to  break 
with  it.  Instead  they  go  on  talking  vaguely  from 
premises  which  they  suspect  to  be  unsound,  and 
which  the  ordinary  intelligent  man  of  the  world 
would  not  admit  for  a  moment.  It  seldom  seems 
to  occur  either  to  assailants  of  Christianity,  like  the 
editor  of  the  Clarion,  or  to  the  ordinary  church- 
goer that  the  Christianity  represented  by  the  so-called 
orthodox  churches  is  not  Christianity  at  all.  The 
Christianity  of  New  Testament  times,  as  I  shall 
presently  try  to  show,  did  undoubtedly  contain 
elements  which  the  modern  mind  would  reject  as 
unhesitatingly  as  it  rejects  the  dogmatic  Christianity 
of  to-day,  but  its  emphasis  was  altogether  different 
from  the  latter.  It  is  this  plain,  broad  fact  which 
needs  to  be  recognised  and  brought  out  in  the 
immediate  future,  and  in  the  recognition  of  which  I 
see  hope  for  the  churches.  It  is  a  deplorable  thing 
that  so  many  thousands  of  our  fellow-countrymen 
should  think  that  in  breaking  with  the  churches  as 
the  churches  now  are  they  are  breaking  with  Chris- 
tianity. Let  them  find  out  what  Christianity  is, 
and  they  will  discover  that  in  principle  it  was  at 
first  the  very  thing  which  is  represented  by  the  move- 
ment toward  social  regeneration  to-day. 
The  rise  of  Socialism.  —  In  every  quarter  of  the 


14         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

civilised  world  a  new  spirit  is  evident  amongst  the 
masses  of  the  people.  A  movement  is  rising  and 
gathering  strength  in  every  nation,  a  movement 
of  which  rulers  and  legislatures  are  having  to  take 
cognisance.  It  is  the  same  movement  everywhere, 
and  most  observers  of  the  signs  of  the  times  are 
now  agreed  that  it  is  a  force  which  is  destined  to 
change  the  face  of  the  world;  I  refer,  of  course,  to 
the  movement  designated  by  the  broad,  general 
term  of  Socialism.  Many  people  who  are  afraid 
of  the  name  are  already,  to  a  great  extent,  in  sym- 
pathy with  its  aims.  It  has  developed  an  inter- 
national consciousness,  the  nucleus  of  that  better  un- 
derstanding of  mutual  interests  which  will  in  time 
make  war  impossible.  It  has  not  yet  realised  itself 
sufficiently  to  become  one  vast  organisation.  Even 
in  this  country  it  is  represented  by  groups,  acting 
more  or  less  in  mutual  accord,  but  severally  dis- 
tinct. Thus  we  have  the  Fabian  Society,  the  Social 
Democratic  Federation,  and  the  Independent  Labour 
Party.  But  the  striking  and  significant  thing  about 
the  movement  thus  exempUfied  is  that  it  has  given 
rise  to  a  sense  of  comradeship  between  the  indus- 
trial workers  of  the  world  which  overleaps  ordinary 
national  boundaries ;  the  workman  of  Chicago  feels 
in  closer  sympathy  with  the  workman  of  Berlin  and 
London  than  he  does  with  the  Trust  magnate  in 
the  next  block  —  I  mean  the  workman  who  is  con- 
scious of  the  existence  of  the  international  move- 
ment to  which  I  refer.    Here  we  have,  then,  the  birth 


THE   CHURCHES    AND   THE   MASSES  1 5 

of  a  genuine  international  consciousness  which  seems 
destined  to  grow  with  considerable  rapidity,  and  to 
do  by  direct  pressure  of  public  opinion  what  all  the 
arts  of  diplomacy  have  hitherto  failed  to  do  in  se- 
curing the  peace  of  the  world.  This  was  strikingly 
evidenced  a  little  while  ago  when  the  Tyneside 
workers  drew  upon  their  own  funds  for  the  assist- 
ance of  the  strikers  in  the  North  German  coal  dis- 
pute. The  International  Socialist  Congress,  which 
met  recently  at  Stuttgart,  marks  a  long  step  in  the 
same  direction.  The  impressive  thing  to  be  noted 
about  such  gatherings  is  that  at  the  very  moment 
when  international  jealousy  is  so  pronounced  be- 
tween England  and  France  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Germany  on  the  other,  the  leaders  of  the  socialist 
parties  in  the  legislatures  of  these  same  countries 
should  meet  on  common  ground  with  the  appar- 
ently perfect  realisation  that  they  are  one  and  the 
same  party  united  for  the  attainment  of  a  common 
object.  Of  what  other  political  party  or  economic 
organisation  in  the  world  could  this  be  said?  It  is 
inconceivable  that  British  Liberalism,  for  instance, 
should  send  delegates  to  meet  and  confer  with  Ameri- 
can democrats  for  the  furtherance  of  their  common 
principles.  There  are  no  such  principles.  The 
ordinary  political  parties  of  the  several  States  of 
Christendom  are  purely  local  and  limited  in  their 
outlook,  and  never  pretend  to  be  anything  else. 
Here,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
is  a  party,  or,  rather,  a  movement,  political,  eco- 


1 6  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

nomic,  and  moral,  which  deliberately  takes  world 
politics  into  its  purview,  and  aims  at  nothing  less 
than  international  brotherhood.  If  ever  this  move- 
ment should  become  one  vast,  compact,  world-wide 
organisation,  it  will  revolutionise  statecraft  as  we 
have  hitherto  understood  it. 

But,  after  all,  this  is  only  a  small  part  of  what 
may  be  looked  for  from  the  advent  of  such  a  move- 
ment. The  most  hopeful  thing  about  it  is  that  it 
marks  the  awakening  of  the  social  consciousness 
in  every  nation,  and  comes  as  a  message  of  hope  to 
the  oppressed  and  unprivileged  everywhere.  It  has 
taken  the  movement  a  long  while  to  do  this,  and  it 
has  made  many  mistakes  in  its  experimental  stages. 
I  do  not  propose  to  write  a  history  of  SociaUsm,  but 
it  is  worth  while  pointing  out  that  it  has  now  out- 
lived the  era  of  crude  and  partial  experiments,  and 
has  come  to  be  reckoned  with  as  the  most  serious 
and  portentous  of  all  the  forces  at  work  in  the  modern 
world.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  Sociahsts  were 
laughed  at  or  dreaded  as  mere  faddists  and  revo- 
lutionaries, disturbers  of  the  pohtical  equilibrium, 
but  not  otherwise  important.  Perhaps  even  now 
they  may  be  thought  of  in  some  minds  as  belonging 
to  the  same  order  as  anarchist  bomb-throwers,  and 
associated  with  secret  societies  and  barricades. 
Statesmen  like  Herr  Bebel  in  Germany,  and  M. 
Jaur^'s  in  France,  have  done  much  to  dispel  that 
kind  of  illusion.  In  this  country  few  would  be  dis- 
posed to  connect  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  and  Mr,  Keir 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE   MASSES  1 7 

Hardie  with  assassinations  and  incendiarism.  It 
is  no  longer  possible  for  serious-minded  people  to 
misunderstand  the  quality  and  temper  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Socialist  movement,  although  they  might 
dread  the  advent  of  the  day  when  their  ideals  should 
prevail  so  far  as  to  place  the  government  of  this 
or  any  other  country  in  their  hands. 

Socialism  and  the  churches.  —  So  far,  then,  we 
have  taken  note  of  two  outstanding  features  of  the 
life  of  to-day,  the  decline  of  the  churches  and  the 
rise  of  Socialism.  We  have  not  inquired  whether 
the  two  are  connected,  or  whether  Christianity  is 
likely  to  survive  this  process  of  dissolution  and 
change.  But  let  me  say  here  as  emphatically  as 
I  can,  that  what  appears  to  me  to  be  going  on  in 
this  decline  of  one  set  of  institutions,  and  the  rise  of 
another,  is  simply  the  revival  of  Christianity  in  the 
form  best  suited  to  the  modern  mind.  I  am  aware 
that  few  have  yet  seen  this  to  be  the  case,  but  before 
long  every  thoughtful  mind  will  be  compelled  to 
see  it.  What  is  really  at  stake,  it  is  the  object  of 
the  following  pages  to  show. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  so  far  the  Socialistic 
movement  has  received  but  little  encouragement 
from  the  churches,  and,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
has  developed  in  antagonism  to  them.  In  this 
country,  to  be  sure,  the  Christian  Social  wing  of  the 
High  Church  Party  has  identified  itself  more  or  less 
closely  with  the  Labour  movement,  and  many  of 
the  clergy  have  openly  professed  themselves  Social- 


1 8         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

ists.  But  such  clergy  are  only  a  small  minority  of 
their  order,  and  it  could  hardly  be  maintained  that 
they  are  in  any  sense  necessary  to  the  movement; 
it  could  go  on  quite  well  without  them,  and  they 
know  it.  Taken  on  the  whole,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  the  Free  Churches  have  done  less  for  the  move- 
ment than  the  High  Anglicans.  No  doubt  this  is 
partly  due  to  the  traditional  alliance  between  Non- 
conformity and  the  Liberal  party,  an  alliance  which 
proved  very  useful  to  the  present  Government  at 
the  last  General  Election.  The  Free  Church  Coun- 
cil is  a  Liberal  political  caucus,  and  this  fact  may 
yet  prove  its  undoing.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  the  young  Free  Churchmen  of  keen  social  sym- 
pathies who  are  coming  into  public  notice  will  care 
to  lend  whole-hearted  support  to  an  organisation 
which  is  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  political  party 
which  represents  in  a  preponderating  degree  the 
interest  of  the  bourgeois  class.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  would  appear  to  be  an  essential  antagonism 
between  democracy  and  sacerdotalism.  If  the  case 
which  I  hope  to  present  for  Christianity  in  this  book 
is  the  true  one,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  conclu- 
sion that  sacerdotal  Socialists  are  Socialists  not 
because  of,  but  in  spite  of,  their  sacerdotalism.  On 
the  Continent  this  is  recognised  much  more  fully 
than  here.  Here  the  clergy  are  much  more  in  touch 
with  the  body  of  the  nation  than  is  the  case  in  France, 
or  Italy,  for  example.  In  these  countries  the  op- 
position between  Socialism  and  clericalism  is  ex- 


THE  CHURCHES   AND  THE   MASSES  1 9 

treme,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  likelihood  of  a 
better  understanding.  History  has  taught  the  leaders 
of  the  democracy  not  to  expect  much  from  Roman 
Catholicism,  or,  indeed,  from  Protestantism  either. 
In  every  country  it  is  the  same  story:  The  churches 
are  one  thing,  the  Socialist  movement  is  another; 
and,  despite  individual  instances  of  clerical  Social- 
ism, official  Christianity  is  not  only  quite  distinct 
from  Socialism,  the  two  are  antagonistic. 

Socialism  and  the  Kingdom  of  God.  —  Is  there 
any  necessity  why  this  should  be  so?  I  think  not, 
although  I  have  little  hope  that  there  will  be  much 
change  for  a  good  while  to  come.  There  is  good 
reason  for  the  antagonism,  and  the  reason  is  that 
the  churches  have  been  captured  to  a  large  extent 
by  the  forces  which  Socialism  seeks  to  destroy.  The 
churches  have  largely  forgotten  their  own  origin, 
and,  so  far,  there  is  not  much  indication  that  they 
are  likely  to  recall  it.  We  are  thus  confronted  with 
a  most  curious  and  anomalous  situation:  The  So- 
cialism which  is  developing  so  generally  in  antago- 
nism to  conventional  Christianity  is  far  nearer  to 
the  original  Christianity  than  the  Christianity  of  the 
churches.  The  objective  of  Socialism  is  that  with 
which  Christianity  began  its  history.  Socialism  is 
actually  a  swing  back  to  that  gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  which  was  the  only  gospel  the  first  Chris- 
tians had  to  preach;  the  traditional  theology  of  the 
churches  is  a  departure  from  it.  I  do  not  mean, 
of  course,  to  make  the  foolish  statement  that  primi- 


20         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

tive  Christianity  was  identical  with  the  Socialism 
of  to-day;  it  was  not,  but  it  was  far  nearer  to  the 
Socialism  of  to-day  than  to  the  official  Christianity 
of  to-day.  Indeed,  we  may  say  that  its  aim  and 
purpose  were  so  neariy  akin  to  those  of  present-day 
Socialism,  that  the  latter  may,  without  the  least 
exaggeration,  be  described  as  the  inheritor  of  the 
true  Christianity.  This  is  a  comprehensive  state- 
ment but  I  hope  to  make  it  good. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD 

I.  In  Jewish  History 

The  evangel  of  primitive  Christianity.  — The 
ordinary  church-goer  nowadays  takes  for  granted 
that  Christianity  as  he  knows  it  is  the  reUgion  which 
Jesus  brought  to  the  world,  and  represents  what  the 
original  followers  of  Jesus  believed  and  taught.  So 
far  is  this  from  being  the  case,  and  so  well  do  biblical 
and  historical  scholars  know  it,  that  it  is  astonishing 
to  witness  the  immobility  of  the  churches  in  presence 
of  the  facts. 

Christianity  began  as  the  glad  tidings  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  Its  Founder  did  not  invent  this  name, 
and  neither  He  nor  His  followers  knew  that  they  were 
promulgating  a  new  religion  which  would  last  for 
many  centuries  after  His  death,  and  would  become 
interwoven  with  a  new  civilisation.  It  can  hardly 
be  necessary  to  say  that  it  never  occurred  to  them  to 
call  it  Christianity;  that  was  a  much  later  develop- 
ment. All  that  Jesus  did,  as  we  are  told  in  the  gospel 
records,  was  to  begin  preaching  among  His  country- 
men of  Israelitish  race  the  glad  tidings  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.    He  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  explain 

21 


22  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

what  He  meant  by  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for  every 
one  knew  already  —  that  is,  every  one  who  had  been 
brought  up  as  he  had  been  brought  up  under  the 
influence  of  Jewish  faith  and  tradition.  What, 
then,  was  this  Kingdom  of  God,  and  where  did  the 
idea  come  from?  In  order  to  answer  that  question 
we  must  go  to  the  records  of  the  race  to  which  Jesus 
belonged  and  the  people  to  whom  He  first  delivered 
His  message.  He  was  a  native  of  Galilee,  but  He 
traced  His  descent  from  the  ancient  Israelitish  stock. 
Our  best  source  of  information  about  the  habits  and 
ideas  of  this  race  is  unquestionably  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures.  But  I  would  ask  my  readers  to 
remember  that  in  any  use  I  may  make  either  of  the 
Old  Testament  or  the  New  my  purpose  is  simply  to 
illustrate  the  growth  of  ideas.  With  this  purpose  in 
mind,  we  must  regard  the  Bible  as  a  collection  of 
purely  human  documents  possessing  a  fascinating 
interest  from  the  historical  point  of  view.  We  shall 
treat  it  as  we  should  treat  Froissart  or  the  Saxon 
Chronicle.  Fortunately,  we  are  nowadays  in  a 
position  to  understand  better  than  was  formerly 
the  case  most  of  the  historical  allusions  made  in 
familiar  scripture  passages. 

Early  Israel  a  theocracy.  — The  Israelitish  people 
had  always  looked  upon  themselves  as  being  in  a 
special  sense  the  favourites  of  God.  Far  back,  at 
the  beginnings  of  their  national  history,  they  no 
doubt  thought  of  Jehovah  (Yahweh)  as  their  God 
in  contradistinction  to  the  gods  of   other   nations. 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  23 

Jehovah  was  their  divine  sovereign,  and  they  were 
his  subjects.  Tradition  had  it,  indeed,  that  the 
later  choice  of  a  human  sovereign  to  lead  them  in 
battle  like  the  military  sovereigns  of  other  nations, 
was  a  perilous  experiment,  which,  for  a  time,  exposed 
them  to  the  divine  disfavour;  the  earlier,  or  more 
ideal  state  of  things,  was  when  they  were  directly 
governed  by  the  divine  will  operating  through  spe- 
cially chosen  individuals.  During  this  primitive 
period,  then,  the  political  constitution  of  the  Israeli- 
tish  people  was  a  theocracy  or  Kingdom  of  Jehovah. 
This  was  the  view  which  later  tradition  took  of  the 
matter. 

The  two  tendencies :  universalism  and  nationalism. 
—  As  time  went  on,  Israel  began,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  influences  which  we  need  not  now  pause  to 
examine,  but  principally  through  the  work  of  the 
great  preachers  called  prophets,  to  think  of  Jehovah 
as  the  one  and  only  God,  the  God  of  all  the  nations 
upon  earth.  They  still  held  themselves  to  be  in  a 
special  way  His  chosen  people,  and,  although  they 
were  governed  by  ordinary  human  sovereigns  like 
other  nations,  they  thought  of  their  little  kingdom  as 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  Perhaps  it  would  be  truer 
to  say  that  later  generations  looking  back  to  this 
period  of  their  national  history  thought  of  it  in  this 
way.  But  from  the  time  when  Israel  really  entered 
into  the  great  family  of  nations  two  distinct  and  even 
conflicting  tendencies  made  their  appearance  in  rela- 
tion to  the  great  question  we  are  discussing.    The 


24         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

nobler  and  more  spiritual  of  the  two  was  the  tendency 
to  think  of  Israel  as  specially  called  to  witness  for 
the  one  and  only  God  amongst  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  and  to  work  for  the  day  when  all  mankind 
would  be  consciously  and  directly  under  the  divine 
government.  The  other  tendency  was  to  look  upon 
Israel  as  the  only  people  who  were  of  any  account 
in  the  world,  the  people  of  God.  This  second 
tendency  was  as  mischievous  in  its  after  results  as 
the  first  was  great  and  noble.  Probably  it  would 
be  true  to  say  that  the  great  mass  of  the  nation  never 
did  attain  to  the  wider  and  more  spiritual  ideal 
indicated  in  the  former  of  these  tendencies,  but 
unquestionably  some  of  the  great  prophets  did. 
There  is  a  striking  passage,  for  instance,  in  Isaiah 
xix.,  which  illustrates  this: 

"In  that  day  shall  there  be  a  highway  out  of  Egypt  to 
Assyria,  and  the  Assyrian  shall  come  into  Egypt,  and  the 
Egyptian  into  Assyria;  and  the  Egyptians  shall  worship 
with  the  Assyrians.  In  that  day  shall  Israel  be  the  third 
with  Egypt  and  with  Assyria,  a  blessing  in  the  midst  of  the 
earth;  for  the  Lord  of  Hosts  hath  blessed  them,  saying, 
Blessed  be  Egypt  My  people,  and  Assyria  the  work  of  My 
hands,  and  Israel  Mine  inheritance." 

A  passage  like  this  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when 
we  remember  that  it  was  written  long  before  the 
great  captivity,  at  a  time  when  Assyria  and  Egypt 
were  the  great  powers  of  the  ancient  world  and  Israel 
only  a  little  buffer  state  between  them.  It  indicates 
an  exalted  belief  in  the  coming  of  a  universal  divine 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  25 

order  which  should  mean  a  federation  of  all  nations 
in  the  ways  of  righteousness,  prosperity,  and  peace. 
In  another  part  of  the  same  book  we  have  the  social 
effects  of  this  consummation  described  thus  in  meta- 
phorical language: 

"And  the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  Iamb,  and  the  leopard 
shall  lie  down  with  the  kid;  and  the  calf  and  the  young  Hon 
and  the  fattling  together;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them. 
And  the  cow  and  the  bear  shall  feed;  their  young  ones  shall 
lie  down  together;  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox. 
And  the  sucking  child  shall  play  on  the  hole  of  the  asp,  and 
the  weaned  child  shall  put  his  hand  on  the  basilisk's  den. 
They  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain: 
for  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as 
the  waters  cover  the  sea." 

This  was  really  a  beautiful  dream,  and  some- 
thing more  than  a  dream;  it  is  still  the  world's 
hope.  The  wonderful  thing  is  that  an  Israelitish 
prophet  should  have  seen  this  ideal  so  clearly  nearly 
three  millenniums  ago,  and  that  all  through  the 
later  history  of  the  people  to  whom  he  belonged  this 
ideal  should  have  been  continuously  presented  by 
men  of  vision  and  faith. 

Influence  of  the  captivity  on  the  national  con- 
sciousness. —  It  was  not,  however,  till  after  the  great 
captivity  in  Babylon  that  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  took  definite  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  Jew- 
ish people  as  a  whole;  and  it  is  improbable  that  it 
ever  became  to  any  very  large  number  of  them  the 
lofty  and  noble  conception  illustrated  in  the  Ian- 


26  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

guage  just  quoted.  For  a  considerable  period  before 
this  captivity  Israel  had  been  divided  into  two  king- 
doms. The  northern  kingdom  was  destroyed  by 
the  Assyrians;  it  was  the  southern,  or  kingdom  of 
Judah  as  it  was  called,  which  carried  on  the  Israeli- 
tish  tradition,  and  whose  scattered  representatives 
continue  to  do  so  to  this  day.  Nebuchadnezzar, 
king  of  Babylon,  carried  away  the  flower  of  the  Jew- 
ish nation  to  his  rich  and  mighty  capital  eight  hun- 
dred miles  from  their  highland  home.  There  they 
remained  for  more  than  two  generations.  Some  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  pathetic  passages  in  their 
religious  literature  were  composed  during  this  pro- 
tracted exile,  and  show  us  how  the  imprisoned  people 
thought  about  the  national  destiny.  About  the  mid- 
dle of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  Babylon  fell  before 
Cyrus  the  Persian,  and  the  captive  Jews  were  per- 
mitted to  return  home  to  take  up  again  the  thread 
of  their  interrupted  national  existence.  When  they 
got  back  to  their  own  land  they  found,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  that  those  who  had  been  left 
behind  during  the  period  of  Babylonian  overlordship 
had  not  kept  as  closely  to  the  faith  and  customs  of 
'their  fathers  as  the  exiles  themselves  had  done. 
For  one  thing  the  exiles  had  been  the  better  part  of 
the  nation;  and,  for  another,  they  would  be  sure  to 
pride  themselves  in  remaining  as  distinct  as  possible 
from  their  conquerors  and  practising  their  own  re- 
ligious forms.  It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  all 
the  exiles  were  equally  particular,  or  even  that  they 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  27 

all  took  the  trouble  to  return  home  when  the  emanci- 
pation took  place;  only  the  more  earnest  and  patri- 
otic among  them  would  do  that,  and  it  must  have 
been  a  shock  to  these  to  find  that  the  survivors  in 
the  home  land  had  allowed  things  to  drift  and  the 
forms  of  the  national  worship  to  become  disinte- 
grated. The  result  was  the  formation  of  a  nation 
within  the  nation,  so  to  speak,  an  Israel  jealously 
careful  of  the  political  and  religious  traditions  of  the 
past  in  contradistinction  to  the  Israel  which  had 
ceased  to  attribute  much  importance  to  these  things. 
This  stricter  Israel  tended  to  become  more  and  more 
exclusive  as  time  went  on.  Its  leaders  magnified 
and  elaborated  every  precept  of  the  so-called  Law 
of  Moses ;  the  whole  life  of  the  pious  Jew  was  regu- 
lated by  the  Law  down  to  the  minutest  detail.  The 
national  consciousness  thus  became  even  more  in- 
tense than  it  had  been  before  the  great  captivity, 
and  remained  so  in  spite  of  all  the  vicissitudes  through 
which  it  had  yet  to  pass.  But  from  this  time  for- 
ward the  Jews  were  never  without  a  foreign  master. 
The  Persian  rule  was  succeeded  by  that  of  the  Greeks, 
and  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era 
Palestine  became  included  in  the  vast  Roman  Empire 
which  was  now  co-terminous  with  the  civilised 
world. 

Idealising  the  past  and  dreaming  of  the  future.  — 
Throughout  all  these  changes  Jewish  patriotic  and 
religious  sentiment  continued  to  dwell  upon  the 
theocratic   kingdom   of   the   remote   past,    and   to  v 


28  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

imagine  a  yet  more  glorious  future.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that,  under  the  circumstances,  the  narrower 
national  party  which  had  existed  ever  since  the  return 
from  the  captivity  should  have  dwelt  much  upon  the 
supposed  restoration  of  Israel's  former  glory  and 
should  have  pictured  it  as  being  accompanied  by 
the  complete  and  final  overthrow  of  all  her  enemies. 
They  searched  every  line  of  the  sacred  writings  for 
prophecies  bearing  upon  this  much  to  be  desired 
consummation,  and  where  prophecy  was  silent  popu- 
lar imagination  supplied  the  lack.  Most  of  the  post- 
exilic  prophetical  writings  contain  some  allusion  to 
this  hope.  Thus,  for  example,  writes  a  later 
Isaiah :  — 

"Thy  gates  also  shall  be  open  continually;  they  shall  not 
be  shut  day  nor  night;  that  men  may  bring  unto  thee  the 
wealth  of  the  nations,  and  their  kings  led  with  them.  For 
that  nation  and  kingdom  that  will  not  serve  thee  will  perish; 
yea,  those  nations  shall  be  utteriy  wasted.  The  glory  of 
Lebanon  shall  come  unto  thee,  the  fir-tree,  the  pine,  and  the 
box-tree  together;  to  beautify  the  place  of  My  sanctuary, 
and  I  will  make  the  place  of  My  feet  glorious.  And  the  sons 
of  them  that  afflicted  thee  shall  come  bending  unto  thee ;  and 
all  they  that  despised  thee  shall  bend  themselves  down  at  the 
soles  of  thy  feet;  and  they  shall  call  thee  The  city  of  the 
Lord,  The  Zion  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel." 

It  is  clear  from  a  writing  of  this  kind  that  to  a 
patriotic  Jew  from  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  right  on 
till  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  before  the  Roman  power 
in  A.D.  70,  the  idea  of  the  restoration  of  the  King- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  29 

dom  of  God  was  synonymous  with  that  of  Jewish 
dominion  over  all  other  nations.  It  is  quite  won- 
derful how  this  dream  persisted,  despite  all  probabil- 
ities. How  these  people  should  ever  have  thought  it 
possible  that  the  tiny  Jewish  nationality  could  attain 
to  such  a  position  of  prominence  and  power  must 
remain  a  mystery  to  us,  but  they  did  think  it.  Look- 
ing back  to  the  great  days  of  David  and  Solomon, 
they  idealised  the  conditions  prevailing  at  that  time 
as  contrasted  with  the  sorrows  and  sufferings  of 
later  generations.  To  them  David  was  the  man 
after  God's  own  heart,  and  his  kingdom  was  thought 
of  as  having  been  in  reaUty  a  Kingdom  of  God,  a 
reign  of  splendour  and  greatness,  of  joy  and  plenty 
under  the  favour  of  Heaven.  When  the  poor, 
burdened,  tribute-paying  Jew  of  later  days  looked 
back  to  David's  day,  it  was  quite  natural  that  he 
should  think  of  it  as  having  been  an  ideal  time  in 
the  national  history,  although  it  was  far  different 
in  reality  from  what  it  became  in  later  legend. 
What  the  people  wanted  was  that  David's  day  should 
come  again  with  added  greatness  and  splendour,  and 
that  some  prince  of  David's  line  should  reign  in 
Jerusalem  and  exercise  sovereign  sway  over  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  They  easily  persuaded  themselves 
that  such  a  day  would  certainly  come  sooner  or  later, 
and  that  God,  by  some  striking  demonstration  of 
His  power,  would  not  only  restore  the  Kingdom  as 
it  had  been  in  David's  day,  but  would  miraculously 
add  to  its  greatness  and  splendour  by  overthrowing 


30  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

all  Other  kingdoms  before  it.  This  popular  asso- 
ciation of  David's  name  with  the  growth  of  expecta- 
tion concerning  the  Kingdom  is  a  tribute  to  the  im- 
pressiveness  of  the  personality  of  that  great  prince. 
Most  nationalities  have  some  such  hero  of  tradition, 
half  historical,  half  legendary,  around  whose  name 
gathers  the  cumulative  expression  of  race-loyalty. 
David  was  to  Israel  something  of  what  Alfred  is  to 
England,  and  Frederick  Barbarossa  used  to  be  to 
Germany.  According  to  later  Jewish  tradition  the 
succession  to  the  throne  of  Israel  was  divinely  guar- 
anteed to  the  house  of  David;  how  fondly  this  tra- 
dition was  cherished  in  the  long  dark  days  of  the 
national  humiliation  is  evident  from  the  language 
of  Scripture,  especially  the  New  Testament. 

"I  will  set  up  one  shepherd  over  them,  and  he  shall  feed 
them,  even  My  servant  David;  he  shall  feed  them,  and  he 
shall  be  their  shepherd.  And  I  the  Lord  will  be  their  God, 
and  My  servant  David  prince  among  them ;  I  the  Lord  have 
spoken  it.  And  I  will  make  with  them  a  covenant  of  peace, 
and  will  cause  evil  beasts  to  cease  out  of  the  land:  and  they 
shall  dwell  securely  in  the  wilderness,  and  sleep  in  the  woods 
(Ezek.  xxxiv.  23-25)."  "I  will  give  you  the  holy  and  sure 
blessings  of  David  (Acts  xiii.  34)." 

All  such  writings  as  these  —  and  there  are  many 
of  them  —  prove  conclusively  that  the  name  of 
David  lived  on  in  the  Jewish  mind  as  the  symbol  of 
a  glorious  past  and  the  hope  of  a  still  more  glorious 
future.  It  is  pathetic  as  well  as  interesting  to  note 
the  way  in  which,  centuries  after  Judaea  had  ceased 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  3 1 

to  be  a  kingdom,  her  people  clung  to  the  expectation 
that  the  kingdom  would  one  day  be  reinstituted, 
and  that  its  earthly  head  would  be  a  prince  born  of 
David's  line. 

The  Messiah.  —  As  a  consequence  of  this  persist- 
ent expectation,  carefully  fostered  and  encouraged 
by  the  national  party,  there  grew  up  a  considerable 
body  of  tradition  concerning  the  personaUty  of  this 
supposed  successor  of  David,  whose  special  work  it 
should  be  to  restore  the  Jewish  kingdom.  He  was 
usually  referred  to  as  the  Messiah,  that  is,  the  Sent- 
One.  As  this  is  a  term  which  has  come  to  bear  a 
certain  theological  significance  in  connection  with 
Christianity,  it  may  be  as  well  to  look  into  its  origin 
before  passing  on. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  word  Messiah  is  used 
in  the  Old  Testament  of  others  than  the  prince  of 
popular  tradition;  it  was  originally  employed  to 
designate  any  messenger  or  representative  of  God. 
Thus  (Lev.  iv.  3)  it  is  used  of  the  High  Priest.  In 
Ps.  cv.  15  it  refers  to  the  prophets.  In  Isa.  xlv.  i 
it  is  actually  used  of  a  foreign  potentate,  Cyrus,  the 
deliverer  of  Israel  from  Babylon.  It  was  compara- 
tively late  before  it  became  restricted  so  as  to  denote 
only  the  prince  of  the  house  of  David,  who  was  to 
appear  as  God's  representative  or  instrument  to 
drive  out  the  foreigner  and  assume  the  government. 
Not  all  the  Old  Testament  passages  which  are  sup- 
posed to  refer  to  this  consummation  do  so  in  reahty. 
Thus,  for  example,  the  ancient  saying  — 


32  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

"For  unto  us  a  Child  is  born,  unto  us  a  Son  is  given: 
and  the  government  shall  be  upon  His  shoulder:  and  His 
Name  shall  be  called,  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  Mighty 
God,  The  Everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace.  Of 
the  increase  of  His  government  and  peace  there  shall  be  no 
end,  upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  upon  his  kingdom,  to 
order  it,  and  to  establish  it  with  judgment  and  with  justice 
from  henceforth  even  for  ever  (Isa.  ix.  6,  7)." 


This  familiar  passage,  so  often  used  in  Christian 
worship,  has  no  reference  whatever  to  what  has  come 
to  be  called  the  Messianic  hope ;  it  deals  with  a  situa- 
tion which  was  purely  local  and  contingent;  at  the 
time  it  was  written  Israel  was  still  a  kingdom,  and 
the  house  of  David  had  not  ceased  to  reign.  But 
things  were  altogether  different  when  it  became  a 
question  of  looking  back  to  David's  day  across 
intervening  centuries  of  misery  and  subjection; 
consequently  the  Messianic  hope  to  patriotic  Jews 
meant  the  emergence  of  a  specially  gifted  being  who 
should  go  farther  and  do  more  than  David  had  ever 
done  in  the  glorification  of  the  chosen  people  and  the 
removal  of  all  their  disabilities. 

Where  this  gifted  individual  was  to  come  from 
was  never  very  clear,  and  the  views  held  about  it 
among  the  Jews  at  the  commencement  of  the  Chris- 
tian era  were  to  a  great  extent  mutually  contradic- 
tory. As  time  went  on,  the  tendency  in  thought 
was  to  ascribe  more  and  more  supernatural  power 
to  the  Messiah,  although  it  does  not  appear  that  he 
was  at  first  regarded  as  other  than  a  divinely  chosen 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  33 

human  being.  There  were  some  who  held  that  he 
was  a  prince  who  had  been  taken  up  into  heaven 
and  kept  there  until  the  time  should  be  fulfilled  for 
his  re-appearance  on  earth  and  the  performance  of 
his  God-appointed  work;  others  identified  him  with 
a  pre-existing  Man  from  heaven,  who  should  later 
on  become  incarnate  on  earth,  "of  the  seed  of  David, 
according  to  the  flesh."  This  idea  of  the  Man  from 
heaven  will  require  a  further  examination,  for  it 
exercised  a  considerable  influence  on  the  develop- 
ment of  Christian  thought  through  the  Apostle  Paul. 
For  the  moment  what  we  need  to  recognise  is  that 
all  the  various  theories  about  the  personality  of  the 
Messiah  agreed  in  one  particular,  namely,  that  his 
kingdom  would  supersede  all  other  kingdoms,  and 
would  be  a  veritable  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  — 
a  fulfilment  of  the  ancient  prophetic  dream  of  a 
Commonwealth  of  righteousness,  peace,  and  plenty. 
There  were  very  few  among  the  patriotic  Jews  of 
Jesus*  day,  who  would  have  conceded  that  the  bene- 
fits of  this  kingdom  had  anything  to  do  with  Gentile 
races;  they  were  to  be  reserved  exclusively  for  the 
descendants  of  Abraham.  For  a  century  or  two 
before  Jesus  was  born  this  idea  held  the  field,  at  any 
rate  among  the  strictly  national  party.  Then,  as 
now,  there  must  have  been  a  large  body  of  indiffer- 
entists  who  did  not  trouble  their  heads  much  about 
the  Kingdom;  and  there  certainly  was  a  strong 
party,  including  the  most  highly  placed  among  the 
hierarchy,  who  were  desirous  of  seeing  Jewish  reli- 


34         CHRISTIANITY   AND  tHE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

gion  more  closely  assimilated  to  cosmopolitan  Greek 
culture.  These  were  fiercely  opposed  by  the  na- 
tional party,  to  whom  the  Messianic  hope  was  all- 
important.  Thus  at  the  moment  when  Jesus  was 
born,  there  was  a  distinct  cleavage  between  Graeco- 
Jewish  culture,  as  represented  by  Alexandria,  and 
Palestinian  Judaism,  as  represented  by  the  Phari- 
sees. The  latter  tended  to  become  narrower  and 
narrower,  and  to  think  of  the  expected  Messianic 
Kingdom  or  Kingdom  of  God  as  being  exclusively 
for  the  benefit  of  the  faithful  among  the  chosen 
people,  that  is,  for  those  who  had  adhered  most 
closely  to  the  prescriptions  of  Jewish  law  and  tradi- 
tion. The  Kingdom  of  God,  in  their  sense  of  the 
word,  was  simply  a  revival  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
monarchy,  as  they  pictured  it,  coupled  with  the  ad- 
ditional advantage  of  affording  to  the  oppressed 
Jews  the  satisfaction  of  triumphing  to  the  fullest 
degree  over  every  foreigner,  but  especially  those  who 
had  ever  done  them  any  mischief.  I  do  not  say  that 
this  was  precisely  what  every  one  thought  about  the 
Kingdom,  but  it  represents  the  dominant  expecta- 
tion; in  its  main  features  it  was,  therefore,  purely 
political  and  materialistic. 

Apocal3rptic  ideas  of  later  Judaism.  —  How  this 
programme  was  to  be  carried  out  could  not  possibly 
be  stated  with  anything  like  fulness,  for  there  were 
no  facts  to  go  upon:  but  speculation  indulged  in 
many  curious  fancies.  At  one  time  there  must  have 
been  a  large  apocalyptic  literature,  setting  forth  in 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  35 

vague,  symbolic  language  the  various  views  which 
were  entertained  concerning  the  coming  of  the  King- 
dom. The  most  important  work  of  this  kind  which 
has  come  down  to  us  is  the  Book  of  Daniel.  This 
book  was  probably  written  a  little  before  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  before  Christ,  and  is  therefore 
instructive  as  showing  the  kind  of  expectation  which 
was  prevalent  in  reference  to  the  Messianic  Kingdom. 
The  writer  pictures  the  rise  of  one  secular  power  and 
then  another,  culminating  in  the  ''kingdom  of  the 
saints."  Of  course  the  saints  were  the  Jews,  and 
the  teaching  of  the  book  plainly  is  that  the  various 
world-powers  which  had  held  dominion  up  to  that 
time,  and  to  whom  the  Jews  had  usually  been  sub- 
ject, would  be  utterly  overthrown,  and  the  saints 
would  take  their  place. 

"And  the  kingdom  and  the  dominion,  and  the  greatness 
of  the  kingdoms  under  the  whole  heaven,  shall  be  given  to 
the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High:  His  kingdom 
is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  all  dominions  shall  serve  and 
obey  Him  (Dan.  vii.  27)." 

Another  peculiar  passage  in  this  book  is  evidently 
a  reference  to  the  popular  idea  of  the  Messiah;  at 
any  rate,  this  is  the  sense  in  which  it  is  quoted  later 
in  the  New  Testament : 

"I  saw  in  the  night  visions,  and,  behold,  there  came  with 
the  clouds  of  heaven  one  like  unto  a  Son  of  Man,  and  He  came 
even  to  the  Ancient  of  Days,  and  they  brought  Him  near 
before  Him.  And  there  was  given  Him  dominion,  and  glory, 
and  a  kingdom,  that  all  the  peoples,  nations,  and  languages 


36         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

should  serve  Him:  His  dominion  is  an  everlasting  dominion, 
which  shall  not  pass  away,  and  His  kingdom  that  which  shall 
not  be  destroyed  (Dan.  vii.  13-14)." 

It  is  possible  that  the  Son  of  Man  here  spoken  of 
is  not  the  Messiah  in  particular  but  the  Jewish  nation 
as  a  whole;  but,  whether  or  no,  the  reference  to  the 
Kingdom  is  obvious. 

Influence  of  non- Jewish  ideas  on  Messianic  hope. 
—  A  good  deal  of  the  speculation  concerning  the 
Messiah  and  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which  was  so 
widespread  at  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era, 
owes  something  to  non- Jewish  sources.  It  is  prob- 
able for  one  thing  that,  in  spite  of  the  hostility  of  the 
strictly  national  party  to  the  influence  of  Greek  cul- 
ture, Greek  ideas  even  found  their  way  into  popular 
Jewish  expectation  concerning  the  pedigree  of  the 
Messiah.  The  reaction  of  Palestinian  Judaism 
against  the  all-pervading  influence  of  Greek  ideas 
did  not  begin  soon  enough  to  prevent  this ;  it  is  even 
probable  that  the  party  afterwards  represented  by 
the  Pharisees,  the  party  which  was  most  hostile  to 
any  suggestion  of  admitting  non- Jewish  religious 
ideas,  was  dominated  by  Greek  conceptions  to  a  far 
greater  extent  than  it  was  aware  of.  Thus  the  origi- 
nal patriotic  expectation  concerning  the  coming  of 
a  gifted  human  leader  to  free  the  nation  from  its 
bondage,  gradually  became  mixed  up  with  purely 
philosophical  speculations  about  the  Logos,  through 
whom,  according  to  a  certain  type  of  Greek  thought, 
God  was  supposed  to  have  created  the  world.    The 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  37 

fusion  between  this  idea  and  Jewish  religion  was 
made  in  Alexandria,  not  in  Palestine,  and  its  prin- 
cipal author  was  Philo  —  a  cultivated  Alexandrian 
Jew,  who  was  born  a  few  years  before  Jesus.  But  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Palestine  could  have 
altogether  escaped  the  influence  of  ideas  which  were 
in  the  air  for  a  long  time  before  Philo  wove  them  into 
his  system  of  thought,  and  were  the  necessary  fruit 
of  the  daily  intercourse  of  Jew  and  Greek.  A  glance 
at  Philo's  teaching  ought,  therefore,  to  show  us 
something  of  what  Jews  in  general  were  thinking 
about  the  status  of  the  Messiah  at  the  time  when 
Christianity  came  into  being. 

The  Logos  idea.  —  Philo  taught  that  God  was  so 
infinitely  exalted  above  the  world  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  think  of  Him  as  coming  into  contact 
with  it,  and  impossible  to  predicate  anything  with 
certainty  concerning  Him.  We  can  know  nothing 
about  Him,  and  it  is  futile  to  ascribe  any  excellence 
to  Him,  for  our  finite  notions  of  excellence  can  have 
no  meaning  as  applied  to  God.  He  is  the  absolute, 
the  inconceivable;  we  cannot  attempt  to  describe 
Him  without  falling  into  absurdity.  To  speak  of 
Him  in  terms  of  human  conceptions  of  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  leads  nowhere,  and 
achieves  nothing.  Philo's  starting  point  is  thus 
very  similar  to  that  of  Herbert  Spencer.  From 
this  position  of  nescience  Philo  goes  on  to  speak 
of  God  as  acting  upon  the  sensible  world  through 
intermediate    beings.    At    the    head   of   these    he 


38  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

places  the  Logos.  He  thinks  of  the  Logos  as  the 
being  or  principle  through  whom  the  world  is 
created  and  sustained.  He  is  a  kind  of  second 
God,  but  not  identical  with  the  absolute  God; 
he  is  the  firstborn  of  every  creature.  All  through 
the  history  of  mankind  the  Logos  has  been  reveal- 
ing God;  He  is  the  source  of  everything  that  is 
God-hke  in  human  nature,  the  heavenly  Man. 
Now,  although  Philo  elaborated  this  idea,  he  did 
not  invent  it,  he  borrowed  it  from  the  Stoics,  and 
the  general  conception  of  the  relations  of  God  and 
the  world  which  it  implied  was  borrowed  from  Plato. 
From  this  kind  of  philosophising  it  was  but  a  step 
to  the  identification  of  the  Messiah  of  Jewish  national 
hopes  with  the  Logos  of  Greek  thought,  and  we 
now  know  that  this  identification  was  being  at- 
tempted in  Jewish  popular  religion  before  there  was 
any  Christianity  at  all.  People  were  talking  about 
the  Man  from  heaven,  meaning  the  Messiah,  and  at 
the  same  time  thinking  of  Him  as  invested  with 
most  of  the  attributes  of  the  Greek  Logos  as  inter- 
preted by  Philo  and  his  followers.  Philo  only  put 
into  shape  what  was  already  being  vaguely  thought 
and  said  by  many  of  his  contemporaries  of  his  own 
race  and  time. 

Persian  dualism.  —  But  it  was  not  only  Greek 
influence  which  was  at  work  in  Jewish  popular 
religion  at  this  time ;  there  were  Oriental  influences 
at  work  too,  especially  Persian.  Considering  that 
the  Jewish  exiles  in  Babylon  some  centuries  before 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  39 

had  owed  their  deliverance  to  Persia  this  is  not  sur- 
prising. But  Persian  religion  rested  upon  an  even 
more  absolute  dualism  than  the  Greek  philosophy, 
which  formed  the  substratum  of  Philo's  system  of 
thought.  According  to  Persian  notions  the  uni- 
verse was  sharply  divided  between  the  two  oppos- 
ing powers  of  light  and  darkness,  good  and  evil, 
Ormudy  and  Ahriman,  or  God  and  Satan.  The 
ordinary  present-day  idea  of  Satan  with  which  peo- 
ple frighten  children  in  Christian  lands  is  derived 
directly  from  this  old-time  influence  of  Persian 
duaUsm  on  Jewish  reUgion.  In  still  earlier  Jewish 
rehgion  Satan  was  not  considered  to  be  an  evil 
spirit;  he  was  one  of  the  angelic  servants  of  God, 
the  accuser  of  men,  but  not  the  enemy  of  good. 
But  as  soon  as  Persian  dualism  laid  hold  of  the 
Jewish  imagination  the  character  of  Satan  under- 
went a  metamorphosis;  henceforth  he  was  thought 
of  as  the  captain  of  the  host  of  evil  in  opposition  to 
the  holy  will  of  God.  All  nature  and  all  human 
history  were  now  looked  upon  as  the  scene  of  this 
conflict,  a  conflict  to  which  of  course  there  could 
only  be  one  issue,  namely,  the  catastrophic  triumph 
of  good.  For  the  present,  so  it  was  thought,  Satan 
had  the  best  of  it ;  all  the  earthly  kingdoms  were  in 
his  mighty  grip,  and  even  God's  people  were  in 
bondage  to  him  and  were  suffering  accordingly. 
God  was  being  kept  out  of  His  proper  dominion 
over  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men  because  of  this 
usurpation;   Satan  was  "the  prince  of  this  world." 


40         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

In  the  end,  however,  God  would  resume  His  sover- 
eignty with  a  strong  hand,  and  the  kingdom  of 
Satan  would  be  overthrown.  The  ideas  absorbed 
by  Judaism  from  this  source  are  thus  not  unim- 
portant for  the  consideration  of  our  subject;  it  will 
be  seen  at  once  that  they  have  a  considerable  bear- 
ing upon  popular  ideas  concerning  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  But  the  result  of 
the  operation  of  such  ideas  was  the  development  of 
a  bewildering  number  of  fantastic  theories  concern- 
ing the  person  of  the  Messiah  and  the  way  in  which 
he  was  to  appear.  According  to  some  He  was,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  Logos  through  whom  the  cosmos 
itself  was  created  and  sustained.  Others  regarded 
Him  as  a  divine  Man  existing  before  the  creation, 
and  due  to  descend  into  the  world  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  and  put  an  end  to  Satan's  rule.  Others,  again, 
still  continued  to  think  of  Him  as  an  earthly  con- 
queror of  the  seed  of  David  whom  God  would  gird 
for  the  task  of  fighting  against  and  overthrowing  all 
the  world-powers  which  were  supposed  to  represent 
the  dominion  of  Satan.  It  should  not  be  over- 
looked, however,  that  the  inheritors  of  the  promise 
as  thus  construed  were  supposed  to  be  the  children 
of  Abraham;  outsiders  could  only  benefit  through 
them,  if  at  all.  It  thus  became  easy  to  think  of 
the  "world"  as  synonymous  with  the  kingdom  of 
Satan,  and  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  as  being 
more  or  less  his  instruments  and  under  his  obedience. 
With  such  a  general  conception  as  this  the  thorough- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  4I 

going  Jewish  patriot  trained  under  Pharisaic  meth- 
ods could  find  but  little  room  in  his  heart  for  charity 
towards  the  Gentiles.  Gentiles  did  not  count ;  they 
were  outside  the  covenant;  they  were  classed  in  a 
lump  as  the  servants  of  Satan.  A  good  Pharisee 
could  have  said  of  himself  and  his  party,  just  as 
some  of  the  Christians  did  later  on,  "We  know  that 
we  are  of  God,  and  the  whole  world  lieth  in  the  evil 
one"  (i  John  v.  19). 

Pessimism  of  later  Jewish  thought.  —  This  view 
of  the  world  as  being  essentially  opposed  to  God, 
and  a  synonym  for  all  the  evil  tendencies  in  human 
nature,  led  naturally  to  a  view  of  human  history 
which  was  as  false  as  it  was  depressing,  namely, 
that  mankind  had  begun  well  and  ended  miserably. 
In  much  of  the  rabbinical  lore  of  the  period  imme- 
diately preceding  the  birth  of  Christianity  the  as- 
sumption is  made  that  the  present  is  but  the  ruins 
of  the  past,  and  that  all  the  sorrow  and  suffering  of 
humanity,  as  well  as  all  its  wickedness,  were  due  to 
the  intrusion  of  evil  in  an  otherwise  ideal  creation. 
The  legend  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  became  hardened 
into  dogma,  and  ideas  were  read  into  it  which  it  did 
not  really  contain.  This  Genesis  story  of  the  Fall, 
as  it  has  since  come  to  be  called,  had  never  exer- 
cised any  great  influence  on  Jewish  religious  thought 
hitherto,  as  is  plainly  evident  from  an  examination 
of  the  Old  Testament,  where  it  is  hardly  even  men- 
tioned, much  less  taken  seriously.  It  only  became 
a  dogma  when  the  star  of  the  national  fortunes  had 


42  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

declined,  and  men  were  casting  about  to  find  some 
way  of  accounting  for  God's  apparent  abandonment 
of  His  people  to  the  will  of  their  conquerors.  It 
was  Jewish  pessimism  that  produced  the  theory  of 
a  lost  and  ruined  world,  and  that  pessimism  is  surely 
explainable  when  we  remember  what  the  nation  had 
suffered  ever  since  the  great  captivity. 

Popular  Graeco- Jewish  Cosmogony.  —  Alongside 
of  these  ideas  of  the  past  and  future  of  the  race  went 
a  view  of  the  structure  of  the  universe  and  the  destiny 
of  the  individual  soul  which  have  long  ceased  to 
have  any  meaning  for  the  modern  western  world. 
I  refer  to  the  belief  that  the  universe  was  in  three 
planes  —  the  earth  in  the  middle,  heaven  just  above 
the  sky,  Sheol  or  Hades  down  below  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  This  behef  was  practically  universal  in 
the  civiHsation  of  that  day,  for  neither  GaUleo  nor 
Columbus  had  yet  arisen.  There  were  some  thinkers, 
indeed,  who  had  a  truer  view  of  the  matter,  but  it 
had  not  laid  hold  even  of  the  world  of  culture,  and 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  it  should.  The  or- 
dinarily accepted  view  was  destined  to  hold  its  own 
until  comparatively  modern  times,  and  to  be  in- 
herited from  Graeco- Jewish  thought  by  the  Christian 
church ;  the  pity  is  that  the  church  of  the  present  day 
has  not  seen  fit  to  alter  her  theology  with  her  cos- 
mogony. It  should  be  noted  that  in  early  Jewish 
religion  there  was  practically  no  thought  of  personal 
immortality;  the  only  immortahty  present  to  the 
minds  of  prophets  and  psalmists  was  the  immor- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  43 

tality  of  the  nation,  an  immortality  wholly  of  this 
world.  In  earlier  Jewish  behef,  therefore,  Sheol, 
or  the  under-world,  was  practically  synonymous 
with  the  grave.  ''In  death  there  is  no  remembrance 
of  thee;  in  Sheol  who  shall  give  thanks?"  (Psalm 
vi.  5).  When,  later  on,  the  idea  of  personal  immor- 
tality began  to  dawn  in  the  Jewish  mind,  Sheol  came 
to  be  thought  of  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  Greek 
Hades,  that  is,  as  a  gloomy  and  mysterious  region  in 
which  the  souls  of  the  departed  remained  in  a  state 
from  which  all  the  light  and  joy  of  earth-life  were 
excluded.  In  the  last  century  B.C.  thought  was 
in  a  comparatively  fluid  state  concerning  this  under- 
world and  its  denizens,  so  much  so,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  regard  any  one  theory  as  being  consistently 
or  generally  held.  It  was  widely  believed,  however, 
that  there  was  a  difference  in  the  lot  of  the  good  and 
the  bad  respectively;  the  former,  although  in  the 
under-world,  were  received  into  the  state  of  peace 
piously  termed  "Abraham's  bosom,"  while  the  latter 
were  tormented.  Others  spoke  of  the  state  of  the 
departed  as  a  sleep,  and  one  very  considerable  party 
maintained  that  it  was  a  sleep  from  which  there 
would  be  no  waking.  This  last-named  view  was 
abhorrent  to  the  typical  Jew,  for  it  was  antagonistic 
to  his  theory  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom.  What 
he  looked  for  when  the  Messiah  came  was  a  universal 
judgment  for  which  the  dead  would  have  to  come 
up  from  the  under-world;  this  judgment  would 
result  in  the  purging  of  the  earth  plane  from  all  the 


44         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

evil  that  afflicted  the  chosen  people  and  the  shutting 
of  all  the  servants  of  Satan  down  in  Hades. 

In  this  brief  review  of  the  main  ideas  concern- 
ing the  Kingdom  of  God  which  existed  in  the  Jewish 
mind  at  the  moment  when  Christianity  began  many 
developments  have  necessarily  had  to  be  omitted. 
Even  as  it  is,  the  statement  may  seem  to  some  readers 
to  be  unduly  theological  and  to  devote  too  much 
attention  to  beliefs  which  have  long  since  become 
obsolete,  and  can  have  no  sort  of  value  for  the  modern 
mind.  In  my  judgment,  however,  the  survey  has 
been  necessary  in  order  to  show  something  of  the  in- 
tellectual environment  in  which  the  reUgion  of  Jesus 
took  its  rise,  and,  therefore,  what  the  starting-point 
of  apostolic  preaching  had  to  be.  If  we  do  not 
understand  the  conventional  ideas  of  the  Graeco- 
Jewxsh  world  of  Jesus'  day  we  shall  not  understand 
primitive  Christianity.  It  will  already  have  become 
evident  to  those  of  my  readers  who  have  not  had 
much  previous  acquaintance  with  the  subject  that 
the  ideas  described  in  this  chapter  are  taken  for 
granted  on  nearly  every  page  of  the  New  Testament. 

Summary.  —  To  summarise  the  situation,  then,  let 
us  recognise  that  the  germ  of  the  early  Christian  idea 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  be  found  in  Jewish  belief 
in  the  theocratic  constitution  of  ancient  Israel.  The 
great  preachers,  whose  words  are  recorded  in  the  Old 
Testament,  had  held  up  to  the  national  conscious- 
ness the  ideal  of  a  universal  brotherhood  of  nations 
under  the  sovereignty  of  God,  and  had  declared  it 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  45 

to  be  Israel's  vocation  to  witness  this  to  the  world. 
But,  for  the  most  part,  and  never  more  so  than  at 
the  time  when  Jesus  was  born,  the  Jews  had  come  to 
believe  that  they  were  the  only  people  who  mattered 
much  to  God.  They  were  confident  that  a  good  time 
was  coming,  and  this  they  thought  of  as  the  restora- 
tion of  their  ancient  theocratic  State  with  greater 
power  and  splendour  than  it  had  ever  possessed 
before.  They  believed  that  this  Kingdom  of  God, 
as  they  called  it,  would  be  established  suddenly  and 
by  force;  that  God  would  raise  up  a  descendant  of 
David  to  do  it ;  that  it  would  include  vengeance  upon 
Israel's  enemies;  and  that  it  would  culminate  in  a 
period  of  general  prosperity  and  peace.  No  doubt 
there  were  many  pious  and  humble  souls  who 
thought  of  the  good  time  coming  as  the  victory  of 
goodness  rather  than  the  triumph  of  Jewish  national 
pride,  but  these  could  never  have  been  more  than  a 
few  at  any  time ;  the  general  view  was  more  political 
and  materialistic.  With  the  lapse  of  time  the  ex- 
pected national  deliverer  became  thought  of  as  a 
quasi-supernatural  being  who  would  do  all  kinds  of 
wonderful  things,  but  still  most  people  thought  of 
him  as  being  born  into  the  world  in  an  ordinary  way 
and  growing  up  like  an  ordinary  man.  When  the 
supreme  moment  came,  and  this  Messiah  entered 
into  conflict  with  world  powers.  His  victory  would  be 
signalised  by  a  general  judgment  to  which  the  dead 
would  be  summoned  as  well  as  the  living;  this  judg- 
ment would  be  followed  by  a  thorough  purging  of 


46         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

the  earth  from  everything  evil  and  the  inauguration 
of  the  uninterrupted  reign  of  the  saints,  that  is,  of 
the  faithful  among  the  descendants  of  Abraham. 

This  was  the  general  Jewish  expectation  concern- 
ing the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  expectation  in  which 
the  Founder  of  Christianity  Himself  was  trained, 
and  which  He  took  for  granted  in  all  His  hearers. 
We  have  now  to  observe  the  ways  in  which  this  ex- 
pectation, and  the  ideas  commonly  associated  with 
it,  coloured  Christian  thinking  and  preaching  in  the 
apostolic  age. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD 

II.  In  Primitive  Christianity 

The  Christian  sources.  —  Christianity,  as  we  have 
seen,  began  as  the  proclamation  of  the  near  advent 
of  the  ICingdom  of  God.  The  special  teaching  asso- 
ciated with  this  proclamation  is  stated  to  have  been 
given  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  is  now  regarded  as 
the  central  figure  of  human  history.  If  estimated 
by  his  achievements  this  position  is  well  deserved; 
no  master  of  men  is  comparable  to  Jesus  in  influence 
over  the  destinies  of  mankind.  There  are  those  who 
would  say  that  this  influence  is  due  to  an  ideal  formed 
by  the  Christian  imagination  rather  than  to  an  actual 
historical  personage ;  such  critics  would  maintain  that 
we  know  so  little  about  Jesus  that  we  are  not  justified 
in  asserting  anything  positively  about  His  character 
and  teaching.  Still,  I  think  the  consensus  of  schol- 
arly opinion  to-day  would  be  not  only  that  Jesus 
really  lived,  but  that  His  personality  must  have  been 
one  of  unique  greatness  and  power.  But,  apart 
from  the  doubtful  testimony  of  ecclesiastical  tradi- 
tion, our  only  sources  of  information  about  Jesus  are 
the  writings  collected  in  the  New  Testament,  and 

47 


48         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

these  are  all  of  later  date  —  some  of  them  of  much 
later  date  —  than  the  period  of  His  ministry.  So 
far  as  we  know  He  wrote  nothing  Himself;  so  we 
are  entirely  dependent  upon  second-hand  reports  of 
His  words.  This  renders  the  task  of  forming  a 
judgment  upon  those  words  a  difficult  one,  espe- 
cially as  that  part  of  the  New  Testament  which  pro- 
fesses to  record  them  is  not  the  earliest.  But  for 
our  present  purpose  this  does  not  greatly  matter, 
for  we  have  to  recognise  that,  great  as  the  personality 
of  Jesus  may  have  been,  Christianity  was  largely 
the  product  of  the  intellectual  and  religious  environ- 
ment in  which  it  arose;  it  could  not  have  been  a 
complete  breach  with  the  past,  nor  is  it  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  Jesus  Himself  stood  altogether  un- 
related to  the  Judaism  which  supplied  His  mental 
and  moral  training.  For  the  purpose  of  our  pres- 
ent inquiry,  therefore,  we  are  less  concerned  with 
what  Jesus  actually  said  and  did  than  with  what 
the  primitive  Christian  society  thought  about 
Him  and  His  value  for  mankind,  which  is  exactly 
what  the  New  Testament,  read  in  the  light  of  con- 
temporary history,  enables  us  to  discover.  This  is 
quite  a  reasonable  standpoint  to  adopt,  and  one 
which  is  less  open  to  objection  than  any  other.  The 
important  thing  to  ascertain  is  what  were  the  main 
ideas  taken  for  granted  by  these  first  Christians, 
and  what  was  the  message  they  supposed  they  had 
to  deliver  to  the  world.  The  best  way  of  getting  at 
this  will  be  to  follow  the  traditional  order  rather  than 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  49 

begin  with  the  doctrinal  epistles,  although  probably 
these  were  the  first  to  become  literature.  I  omit 
the  fourth  gospel  for  the  present,  for  it  is  not  a  biog- 
raphy at  all,  but  a  religious  treatise,  like  the  epis- 
tles, its  author  having  adopted  the  literary  device 
of  employing  the  narrative  form  to  set  forth  his 
ideas. 

John  the  Baptist.  —  We  learn,  then,  from  the 
synoptical  gospels  that  the  work  of  Jesus  was  pre- 
pared for  by  the  emergence  of  a  remarkable  preacher 
who  has  become  known  to  Christian  tradition  as 
John  the  Baptist.  I  do  not  mean  that  this  preacher 
was  a  divinely  appointed  and  long-expected  fore- 
runner of  the  Messiah  in  the  sense  usually  under- 
stood in  Christian  circles  to-day.  I  mean  that  a 
man  of  prophetic  temper  and  courage,  a  latter-day 
Elijah,  stood  forth  as  the  exponent  of  a  truer  and 
nobler  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
than  that  which  had  become  popular.  Any  one 
who  reads  the  New  Testament  without  being  pos- 
sessed by  the  ordinary  presuppositions  of  dogmatic 
Christian  theology  will  see  at  once  that  this  man 
was  addressing  himself  to  the  mental  environment 
of  his  time,  and  that  he  never  got  beyond  it.  His 
preaching  was  a  protest  against  the  materiaUsm  of 
prevaiUng  ideas  concerning  the  nature  of  the  King- 
dom, but,  hke  so  many  of  his  contemporaries  of 
Jewish  race,  he  fully  beheved  the  Kingdom  to  be  near 
at  hand.  He  beheved,  too,  in  the  contemporary  no- 
tion of  the  Messiah  and  His  work.    It  is  evident, 


50         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

from  such  fragments  of  his  discourses  as  have  come 
down  to  us,  that  he  thought  of  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah  as  a  kind  of  universal  judgment,  in  which 
all  evil  elements  should  be  purged  out  of  human 
society,  followed  by  an  entire  reorganisation  of 
human  affairs.  Neither  is  there  any  reason  to 
doubt  that  he  was  a  loyal  nationalist  in  his  con- 
viction that  the  Jewish  people  would  occupy  the 
supreme  position  in  the  new  order,  and  that  their 
Messiah  would  be  the  universal  monarch.  It  was 
because  he  beUeved  all  these  things  in  common  with 
the  people  he  addressed  that  he  obtained  immediately 
such  an  extensive  hearing;  but,  probably,  it  was  his 
eloquence  and  moral  austerity  which  gained  him  the 
influence  he  undoubtedly  wielded  over  the  popular 
mind  for  a  considerable  period.  He  was  filled  with 
indignation  at  the  trickeries  and  insincerities  of  the 
reUgious  ruling  class,  who  talked  much  about  the 
Kingdom  without  realising  that  the  one  indispen- 
sable requisite  in  the  new  order  when  it  came,  would 
be  personal  righteousness  of  a  real,  and  not  merely 
of  a  ceremonial,  kind.  For  men  of  covetous  and 
grasping  spirit  to  talk  about  an  ideal  social  order 
was  absurd,  and  he  told  them  so.  The  behef  that 
real  righteousness  of  Hfe  did  not  matter  so  long  as 
a  man  was  descended  from  Abraham,  he  regarded 
as  a  most  mischievous  perversion  of  the  truth  about 
the  Kingdom.  It  seems  that  the  main  thing  which 
drove  this  successor  of  the  prophets  into  the  open 
and  made  him  a  preacher  was  his  first-hand  acquaint- 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  51 

ance  with  the  social  inequalities  and  unredressed 
wrongs  of  the  people  among  whom  he  dwelt.  We 
now  know,  as  everybody  knew  then  but  submitted 
to  it,  that  the  aristocratic  priestly  order  made  large 
profits  out  of  the  disabihties  of  the  people.  It  is 
one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  the  ecclesiastical 
order  should  so  often  have  done  the  same  since  in 
the  name  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity.  The  men 
who  devoured  widows'  houses  and  for  a  pretence 
made  long  prayers  were  an  abomination  to  John  the 
Baptist;  and  yet  these  men  were  talking  about  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  same  way  as  every  one  else. 
It  is  this  which  explains  the  voluntary  poverty  of 
the  preacher  as  well  as  much  of  his  fiery  language. 
His  message  was  social  and  ethical,  inspired  by  a 
firm  belief  in  the  righteousness  of  God.  When 
members  of  the  orthodox  religious  orders  came 
to  listen  to  him,  he  did  not  mince  matters.  Let 
us  look  at  what  he  said,  but  in  so  doing  let  us  keep 
our  minds  free  of  Christian  theology  in  any  shape 
or  form.  If  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  we  are  so 
accustomed  to  hearing  these  words  read  in  churches, 
with  all  the  atmosphere  of  dogma  about  them,  we 
should  see  at  once  that  this  man  was  dominated  by 
the  same  motive  and  passion  as  the  social  reformers 
of  to-day,  and  by  very  little  else.  Addressing  him- 
self to  representatives  of  the  orthodox  rehgious 
classes,  he  exclaimed  — 

Ye  offspring  of  vipers,  who  warned  you  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come  ?    Bring  forth  therefore  fruit  worthy  of  repent- 


52  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

ance :  and  think  not  to  say  within  yourselves,  We  have  Abra- 
ham to  our  father:  for  I  say  unto  you,  that  God  is  able  of 
these  stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham.  And  even 
now  is  the  axe  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  trees;  every  tree 
therefore  that  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down,  and 
cast  into  the  fire.  I  indeed  baptise  you  with  water  unto 
repentance:  but  He  that  cometh  after  me  is  mightier  than  I, 
whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy  to  bear:  He  shall  baptise  you 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire :  whose  fan  is  in  His  hand, 
and  He  will  throughly  cleanse  His  threshing-floor;  and  He 
will  gather  His  wheat  into  the  garner,  but  the  chaff  He  will 
bum  up  with  unquenchable  fire. 

We  might  paraphrase  the  archaic  English  of  this 
passage  as  follows :  — 

You  venomous  deceivers !  How  have  you  found  out  that 
a  social  revolution  is  at  hand?  I  suppose  you  want  to  make 
sure  of  being  on  the  safe  side,  but  you  will  have  to  produce 
better  evidence  of  sincerity  in  your  desire  for  amendment 
than  you  have  done  up  to  the  present.  Do  not  imagine  that 
descent  from  Abraham  will  avail  you  anything.  The  real 
descendants  of  Abraham  are  those  who,  like  him,  seek  to 
do  the  will  of  God  in  dealing  justly  with  their  fellow-men. 
You  are  right  to  be  apprehensive,  for  the  reign  of  hypocrisy 
and  oppression  is  well-nigh  over;  the  rotten  trees  will  soon 
be  hewn  down  and  consumed.  My  baptism  is  only  a  pre- 
liminary, a  mere  sign  of  the  desire  to  lead  a  better  life;  but 
the  long-expected  deliverer  will  be  here  soon,  and  He  will 
baptise  the  world  with  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  fire  of  retribu- 
tion. Only  the  grain  will  be  garnered;  the  chaff  will  be 
burned  up  in  the  flame  of  His  judgment.  All  shams  and 
tyrannies  will  have  to  go,  and  the  world  will  make  a  fresh 
start. 

Another  version  of  the  preaching  of   the  great 


THE   KINGDOM   OF  GOD  53 

ascetic  represents  him  as  giving  practical  directions 
to  those  who  sought  his  counsel  — 

And  the  multitude  asked  Him,  saying,  What  then  must 
we  do  ?  And  He  answered  and  said  unto  them,  He  that  hath 
two  coats,  let  him  impart  to  him  that  hath  none ;  and  he  that 
hath  food,  let  him  do  likewise.  And  there  came  also  tax- 
gatherers  to  be  baptised,  and  they  said  unto  Him,  Master, 
what  must  we  do  ?  And  He  said  unto  them.  Extort  no  more 
than  that  which  is  appointed  you.  And  the  soldiers  also 
asked  Him,  saying,  And  we,  what  must  we  do?  And  He 
said  unto  them.  Do  violence  to  no  man,  neither  exact  any- 
thing wrongfully;   and  be  content  with  your  wages. 

Whether  these  records  of  the  utterances  of  the 
remarkable  man  who  heralded  the  movement  since 
known  as  Christianity  be  accurate  or  no  does  not 
matter  in  the  least.  Their  importance  consists  in 
the  fact  that  they  reveal  the  mood  of  the  time ;  they 
show  what  people  were  thinking  about.  The  true 
distinction  of  this  rugged  preacher  is  that  he  recalled 
the  minds  of  his  contemporaries  to  the  moral  serious- 
ness of  the  drastic  change  they  so  ardently  desired 
to  see.  No  doubt  this  preaching  helped  to  intensify 
the  popular  belief  that  the  long-expected  Kingdom 
would  come  very  speedily  by  some  kind  of  a  catas- 
trophic act  of  God.  We  are  told  that  John's  hearers 
earnestly  discussed  the  question  as  to  whether  he 
himself  were  the  national  dehverer,  a  supposition 
which  the  preacher  set  at  rest  by  plainly  affirming 
that  his  only  work  was  to  declare  the  near  advent 


54  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

of  the  Messiah,  and  to  prepare  his  countrymen  for 
what  would  then  ensue.  It  is  unmistakable  that  the 
all-dominating  idea  in  his  evangel  was  that  of  social 
regeneration.  He  quite  believed  that  this  would  be 
brought  about  by  force,  and  his  warning  to  oppress- 
ors had  therefore  a  good  deal  of  point.  There  is 
no  suggestion  of  other-worldism  about  the  matter 
from  first  to  last.  His  message  is  pure  social  ethics 
rendered  necessary  by  the  manners  of  the  time  and 
the  dual  oppression  of  foreign  rule  and  materialis- 
tic ecclesiasticism,  as  we  should  call  it  now.  John 
the  Baptist  was  exactly  the  kind  of  man  who  would 
have  led  the  attack  on  the  Bastille,  or  who  would 
nowadays  be  found  addressing  a  Labour  demon- 
stration in  Hyde  Park.  The  general  expectation 
as  to  supernatural  interference  and  a  dramatic 
wind-up  to  the  prevailing  condition  of  things  has  had 
its  parallels  on  an  even  larger  scale  more  than  once 
since  that  day.  At  the  approach  of  the  year  looo 
A.D.,  for  example,  all  Europe  seems  to  have  become 
possessed  by  the  idea  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
at  hand.  The  Church  obtained  a  considerable 
accession  of  wealth  and  power  through  the  pious 
benefactions  of  various  princes  and  nobles,  who 
thought  it  best  to  be  on  the  safe  side  when  the  crash 
came.  A  similar  state  of  pious  panic  arose  in  Lon- 
don some  generations  ago  when,  owing  to  an  eclipse 
and  the  preaching  of  a  fanatic,  the  greater  part  of 
the  population  of  the  metropolis  encamped  in  the 
open  air  on  Hampstead  Heath  and  other  places  and 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  55 

betook  itself  to  prayer  under  the  firm  conviction  that 
the  Day  of  Judgment  had  come.  Such  vagaries  on 
the  part  of  large  masses  of  human  beings  are  not 
at  all  uncommon.  We  need  not,  therefore,  be  sur- 
prised at  the  widely  diffused  expectation  concerning 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  which  gained  John  the 
Baptist  his  hearing,  and  accounted  afterwards  for 
most  of  the  temporary  popularity  of  Jesus.  This 
expectation  had  been  fostered,  as  we  have  seen,  for 
generations,  and  had  gradually  become  more  and 
more  definite  in  outline.  It  originated  in  a  bitter 
experience  of  national  humiliation,  want,  and  misery, 
coupled  with  a  firm  belief  in  the  national  vocation 
and  the  special  favour  of  God. 

Emergence  of  Jesus.  —  Before  long,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  John's  boldness  in  rebuking  the 
vices  of  the  time  led  to  his  imprisonment  and  exe- 
cution. It  was  then,  according  to  the  gospel  ac- 
counts, that  a  new  and  greater  prophet  came  for- 
ward —  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  If  it  were  necessary  to 
keep  our  minds  clear  of  doctrinal  prepossessions 
when  considering  the  work  of  John  the  Baptist,  it 
is  even  more  so  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  Centuries  of 
religious  dogma  have  made  it  almost  impossible  for 
the  ordinary  man  of  to-day  to  see  the  work  of  Jesus 
in  its  true  historic  setting.  We  need  not  here  dis- 
cuss the  growth  of  Christian  doctrine  concerning 
His  status  in  the  Godhead,  or  even  the  manner  of 
His  birth  as  set  forth  in  the  first  and  third  gospels. 
What  we  have  to  do  with  is  the  mental  and  social 


56  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

environment  in  which  He  wrought.  He  evidently 
succeeded  to  the  work  John  had  begun,  for  we  are 
told  that,  as  soon  as  the  Baptist  was  cast  into  prison 
Jesus  began  to  preach,  like  him,  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  It  is  impossible  to  say  now  with  anything 
approaching  to  absolute  certainly  what  proportion 
of  the  discourses  of  Jesus,  as  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  actually  in  His  own  words,  and  how 
much  is  due  to  the  mental  bias  of  His  hearers. 
Whether  Jesus  shared  the  contemporary  behef  as 
to  the  cataclysmic  nature  of  the  coming  of  the  King- 
dom is  a  matter  of  dispute;  perhaps  He  did.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  evident  that  He  saw  no  necessity  for 
telling  people  plainly  that  their  belief  in  the  nearness 
of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  was  a  mistake;  so 
there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  the  view  that  He 
Himself  shared  that  belief.  But  He  went  even  be- 
yond the  Baptist  in  His  insistence  upon  the  fact  that 
material  plenty  was  not  in  itself  sufficient  for  happi- 
ness or  a  satisfaction  to  the  deeper  needs  of  man. 
It  cannot  be  too  plainly  recognised,  however,  that 
to  Jesus  as  to  John  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  a 
Commonwealth  of  social  justice  and  brotherhood. 
To  Him  the  precepts  of  the  elaborate  code  tradition- 
ally known  as  the  law  of  Moses,  were  summed  up 
under  the  one  general  principle  of  love  to  God  and 
man,  or  love  to  God  through  man.  There  are  some 
indications  that  even  Jesus  was  not  at  first  entirely 
free  from  the  behef  that  the  Kingdom  when  it  came 
would  be  first  and  foremost  for  the  benefit  of  the 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  57 

Jews,  and  only  secondarily  for  the  good  of  the  human 
race  as  a  whole.  Thus,  for  example,  when  a  Ca- 
naanitish  mother  appealed  to  Him  to  heal  her  sick 
child,  His  reply  was  — 

"I  was  not  sent  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel.  ...  It  is  not  meet  to  take  the  children's  bread  and 
cast  it  to  the  dogs"  (Matt.  xv.  24,  26;  Mark  vii.  27). 

If  Jesus  really  said  this,  it  is  clear  that  at  this 
time  the  horizon  of  His  interests  was  bounded 
by  a  desire  for  the  welfare  of  Israel  and  Israel 
alone.  Another  instance  of  a  somewhat  similar 
kind  is  His  saying  on  the  occasion  of  His  visit  to 
the  house  of  Zaccheus  the  publican  — 

"This  day  is  salvation  come  to  this  house,  forasmuch 
as  he  also  is  a  son  of  Abraham"  (Luke  xix.  9). 

He  also  organised  a  band  of  preachers  to  whom 
He  gave  the  commission  — 

"Go  not  into  any  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and  enter  not  into 
any  city  of  the  Samaritans,  but  go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel.  And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying,  The 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand"  (Matt.  x.  5,  6). 

In  such  utterances  as  these  Jesus  shows  Him- 
self to  be  a  true  child  of  His  time  and  race.  If 
He  did  not  use  the  words  here  attributed  to  Him, 
it  is  remarkable  that  they  should  have  been  re- 
corded at  all,  for  they  were  not  written  until  after 
the  exclusiveness  of  early  Christian  preaching  had 


58         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

been  broken  through  under  the  influence  of  the 
Apostle  Paul;  to  this  we  must  refer  again  presently. 
If  Jesus  had  from  the  first  meant  His  message  to 
be  universalistic  in  scope,  it  is  strange  that  His 
immediate  followers  should  have  been  so  slow  to 
yield  to  the  urgent  representations  of  Paul,  and 
to  permit  him  to  carry  the  gospel  to  people  of  non- 
Jewish  race.  It  might  have  been  expected  that 
the  Galilean  apostles  should  know  the  mind  of 
Jesus  better  than  a  man  who  was  not  counted 
among  His  followers  during  His  actual  ministry. 
The  presumption,  therefore,  is  that  at  the  beginning 
of  His  public  life,  at  any  rate,  Jesus  believed  that 
the  benefits  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  were  to  extend 
only  to  the  Jewish  people.  What  was  to  become 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  is  not  stated. 

His  disappointment  with  Judaism.  —  But  as  time 
went  on,  Jesus'  attitude  on  this  point  apparently 
began  to  give  way,  owing  to  His  disappointment 
at  the  reception  of  His  message,  first  on  the  part  of 
the  religious  leaders,  and  afterwards  on  that  of  the 
general  public.  It  would  not  be  correct  to  say  that 
Jesus  was  from  the  first  the  leader  of  the  common 
people  against  the  aristocratic  orders.  That  was 
not  so;  He  began  with  the  synagogue-goers,  and 
had  followers  among  the  better  classes.  But  this 
did  not  satisfy  Him;  He  wanted  to  include  the 
whole  nation  in  the  coming  Kingdom,  and  therefore 
He  deliberately  went  to  the  social  outcasts,  and 
bade  them  amend  their  lives  and  claim  their  share 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  59 

in  Israel's  common  heritage.  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
this  kind  of  teaching  would  frighten  off  the  respect- 
able classes,  although  for  a  time  it  might  rouse 
considerable  enthusiasm  among  the  unprivileged. 
The  truth  is  that  no  class  seems  to  have  understood 
Jesus.  The  orthodox  thought  that  the  benefits 
of  the  Kingdom  would  be  ensured  to  those  who  had 
kept  to  the  details  of  the  Jewish  law;  the  remainder 
of  the  population  wanted  a  good  time,  just  as  they 
do  to-day,  and  they  thought  they  saw  in  what  Jesus 
was  saying  the  promise  of  such  a  good  time  in  the 
near  future.  Both  were  materialistic,  each  in  their 
own  way,  and  therefore  as  time  went  on  they  re- 
jected the  ideas  of  Jesus,  although  the  starting-point 
of  those  ideas  was  just  that  popular  belief  in  the 
imminence  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  was 
already  so  widespread.  Some  of  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  scattered  throughout  the  synoptical  gospels, 
show  how  deeply  He  felt  this,  and  how  great  was 
His  disappointment. 

"The  Kingdom  of  God  shall  be  taken  away  from  you  and 
given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof  "  (Matt. 
xxi.  43).  "And  I  say  unto  you,  that  many  shall  come  from 
the  east  and  the  west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham,  and 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven :  but  the  sons  of 
the  kingdom  shall  be  cast  forth  into  the  outer  darkness: 
there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth"  (Matt.  viii. 
II,  12;  Luke  xiii.  28,  29).  "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which 
killeth  the  prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are  sent  unto  her ! 
how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even 
as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye 


6o         CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

would  not!  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate. 
For  I  say  unto  you,  ye  shall  not  see  Me  henceforth,  till  ye 
shall  say,  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord" 
(Matt,  xxiii.  37-39;   Luke  xiii.  34,  35). 

It  is  quite  likely  that  Jesus  uttered  words  like 
these,  considering  the  comparative  failure  of  His 
work  among  His  own  people.  The  beginnings 
were  auspicious  enough,  and  the  fame  of  Jesus 
appears  to  have  for  a  while  outstripped  even  that 
of  John,  and  to  have  attracted  the  attention  of 
King  Herod  himself,  the  potentate  who  had  put  John 
to  death,  and  who  now  wondered  if  the  new  prophet 
were  the  old  come  back.  Jesus  failed  to  retain  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  populace,  partly  because  of  His 
moral  intensity,  which  made  too  great  a  demand 
upon  average  human  nature,  and  partly  because 
of  the  disappointment  when  days  and  months 
passed  and  the  expected  national  insurrection  or 
Divine  interference  with  the  progress  of  events  did 
not  take  place.  We  get  a  hint  of  this  in  the  question 
said  to  have  been  sent  by  the  Baptist  from  his 
prison  — 

Art  thou  He  that  cometh,  or  look  we  for  another?  (Matt, 
xi.  3;   Luke  vii.  19). 

Probably  there  were  some  even  among  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees  who,  in  the  heyday  of  the  popularity 
of  the  Galilean  teacher,  were  disposed  to  think  of 
Him  as  the  leader  every  one  was  looking  for;  but 
the  only  indication  we  have  of  such  a  feeling  on 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  6l 

their  part  is  the  somewhat  doubtful  testimony  of 
the  fourth  gospel,  where  the  author  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Jews  the  interrogation:  "How  long 
dost  Thou  hold  us  in  suspense?  If  Thou  art  the 
Christ,  tell  us  plainly  "  (John  x.  24).  It  is  on  the 
same  slender  foundation  that  we  have  the  statement 
of  the  likelihood  that  at  one  time  the  people  were 
about  to  take  Him  by  force  to  make  Him  king. 
We  are  told  in  the  same  passage  that  they  wished 
to  do  this,  because  they  were  convinced  that  He 
was,  indeed,  the  prophet  whose  advent  had  been 
foretold  (John  vi.  14,  15).  We  can  well  understand 
that  the  reaction  against  Jesus  would  be  in  propor- 
tion to  the  intensity  of  popular  belief  in  what  might 
be  expected  from  Him,  and  to  the  anger  which  was 
felt  when  time  passed  on  and  nothing  was  done. 

Did  He  think  of  Himself  as  the  Messiah  ?  —  But 
the  question  is  important  whether  Jesus  Himself 
took  the  view  of  His  vocation  which  popular  feeling 
did  at  the  zenith  of  His  fame,  that  is,  whether  He 
regarded  Himself  as  the  Messiah.  On  this  point 
the  gospel  accounts  are  not  clear.  If  Jesus  had 
deliberately  given  out  that  He  was  the  Messiah,  a 
plain  issue  would  have  been  declared  at  once,  and 
every  one  would  have  expected  a  rising  against 
Rome  backed  by  portents  from  heaven.  As  it 
was.  His  reserve  seems  to  have  given  opportunity 
for  all  kinds  of  speculation  concerning  His  identity. 
All  three  of  the  synoptists  tell  us  that  He  Himself 
asked  His  followers  what  people  were  saying  about 


62  CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

Him  in  this  respect,  and  the  answer  was  that  various 
opinions  were  held. 

"Some  say  John  the  Baptist;  some  Elijah;  and  others, 
Jeremiah,  or  one  of  the  prophets"  (Matt.  xvi.  13,  14;  Mark 
viii.  27,  28;  Luke  ix.  18,  19). 

The  same  question  elicited  from  His  little  group 
of  followers  the  confession,  *'  Thou  art  the  Christ." 
It  thus  appears  that  even  at  an  advanced  stage  in 
the  ministry  of  Jesus  —  which,  at  the  longest,  was 
no  more  than  three  years  —  no  public  or  private 
pronouncement  had  been  made  as  to  His  Messiah- 
ship.  Even  now,  the  evangelists  add.  He  cautioned 
His  followers  to  say  nothing  about  it.  Later  on, 
of  course,  this  caution  became  quite  useless,  as  is 
evident  from  the  nature  of  His  welcome  into  Jerusa- 
lem just  before  His  arrest  and  crucifixion.  Here 
again  the  evangelists  are  at  one  in  their  testimony. 
Jesus  made  a  public  entry  into  the  city,  and  allowed 
the  crowd  to  greet  Him  with  the  acclamation  — 

"Hosanna;  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord;  Blessed  is  the  Kingdom  that  cometh,  the  Kingdom 
of  our  father  David;  Hosanna  in  the  highest"  (Mark  xi. 
9,  10;  Matt.  xxi.  9;  Luke  xix.  37,  38). 

In  Luke's  version  it  is  stated  that  some  of  the 
Pharisees  tried  to  check  the  demonstration,  and 
called  upon  Jesus  Himself  to  forbid  it,  "and  He 
answered  and  said,  I  tell  you  that,  if  these  shall 
hold  their  peace,  the  stones  will  cry  out"  (Luke 
xix.  40).    There  is  no  mistaking  the  meaning  of 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  63 

this  salutation  or  Jesus'  comment  upon  it.  What- 
ever may  have  been  His  objection  to  allowing  Him- 
self to  be  called  the  Messiah  at  the  beginning  of  His 
public  ministry  He  had  none  now. 

The  most  reasonable  inference  from  the  facts 
seems  to  be  that  it  was  only  gradually  that  the 
probabiUty  that  He  was  called  to  be  the  Messiah 
dawned  upon  Jesus'  own  mind.  We  may  reject 
at  once  as  unhistoric  any  gospel  references  to  por- 
tents which  declared  the  supernatural  dignity  of 
Jesus  at  His  birth,  or  even  at  His  baptism.  Such 
early  Christian  hymns  as  the  Magnificat  and  the 
Song  of  Simeon  only  came  into  existence  long  after 
the  crucifixion.  That  He  could  have  been  pro- 
claimed by  the  Baptist  is  impossible,  taking  into 
account  the  question  already  quoted.  Besides,  as 
we  have  seen,  widely  differing  views  concerning  the 
character  and  endowments  of  the  Messiah  were 
current  at  this  time,  the  one  point  of  agreement 
being  that  He  was  to  be  the  means  of  restoring  the 
Kingdom  to  Israel  and  making  it  a  Kingdom  of 
God.  How  far  Jesus  shared  the  views  of  His  time 
as  to  the  supernatural  accompaniments  of  the  work 
of  the  Messiah  we  shall  never  know,  but  it  seems  to 
me  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that  the  very  idea 
of  Messiahship  underwent  some  transformation  in 
His  mind.  By  this  I  mean  that  He  thought  of  the 
Messiah  as  being  above  all  things  a  spiritual  force. 
He  never  made  the  shghtest  attempt  in  the  direc- 
tion of  instituting  the  Kingdom  by  violence,  and  it 


64         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

is  noteworthy  that  He  only  began  to  permit  people 
to  call  Him  the  Messiah  when  the  end  of  His  minis- 
try was  in  sight  and  He  must  have  known  that  He 
stood  in  great  danger.  The  evangeUsts  are  just  as 
thoroughly  agreed  that  He  prophesied  His  own 
death  at  the  hands  of  His  enemies  as  that  He  allowed 
Himself  to  be  called  the  Messiah.  We  cannot 
account  for  this  in  any  other  way  than  to  say,  as 
has  often  been  pointed  out,  that  Jesus  took  for  His 
ideal  the  Suffering  Servant  of  God,  as  described  in 
the  second  Isaiah,  especially  in  the  well-known  fifty- 
third  chapter:  "He  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men, 
a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief."  To 
preach  righteousness  and  die  for  so  doing  appeared 
to  Him  to  be  a  truer  kind  of  Messiahship  than  one 
of  terrifying  might  and  mihtary  glory. 

The  two  Comings.  —  At  the  same  time  we  must 
beware  of  going  so  far  in  the  direction  of  conven- 
tional Christianity  as  to  be  certain  that  Jesus  was 
so  far  ahead  of  His  contemporaries  as  to  be  able  to 
rely  confidently  upon  the  moral  effect  of  a  noble 
life,  and  trust  to  that  alone  to  regenerate  the  world 
in  time  by  the  slow  working  of  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 
I  do  not  think  the  Gospel  accounts  of  the  doings  of 
Jesus  warrant  any  such  conclusion.  If  this  were 
really  the  dominating  thought  in  His  mind  it  seems 
strange  that  He  did  not  get  any  of  His  followers  to 
understand  it,  for  it  is  clear  enough  that  the  men 
who  wrote  the  gospels  thought  something  quite 
different  about  His  intentions.    According  to  them 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  6$ 

His  idea  was  that  there  were  to  be  two  comings  of 
the  Messiah,  and  that  the  Kingdom  would  be  estab- 
lished by  the  second  coming,  not  the  first.  The 
statement  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  that  there 
would  be  a  period  of  national  tribulation  interven- 
ing between  His  ministry  and  the  grand  consumma- 
tion which  He  called  the  end  of  the  age  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  new  order.  If  Jesus  really  thought  this 
it  could  only  have  been  towards  the  end  of  His 
ministry  when  He  saw  that  there  was  no  likelihood 
of  His  being  accepted  by  His  countrymen.  When 
He  first  began  to  preach,  this  thought  found  no  place 
in  His  utterances;  He  declared  the  Kingdom  of 
God  to  be  quite  near.  Still,  there  does  seem  a 
probabihty  that  the  thought  came  later,  otherwise 
we  cannot  account  for  the  certitude  of  the  first 
Christians  concerning  the  speedy  return  of  their 
Lord. 
Thus  — 

"And  He  began  to  teach  them,  that  the  Son  of  man  must 
suffer  many  things,  and  be  rejected  by  the  elders,  and  the 
chief  priests,  and  the  scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  after  three 
days  rise  again.  And  He  spake  the  saying  openly"  (Mark 
viii.  31). 

In  another  part  of  this  earliest  gospel  we  read 
that  "they  understood  not  the  saying,  and  were 
afraid  to  ask  Him." 

It  certainly  does  seem  strange  that,  if  Jesus  fore- 
told His  temporary  failure  and  death  with  such  clear- 
ness and  emphasis,  His  followers  should  have  been 


66  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

SO  utterly  taken  by  surprise  when  the  end  came,  and 
even  up  to  the  hour  of  His  arrest,  should  have  gone 
on  expecting  some  sudden  coup  d'etat  in  His  favour. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  that  these  supposed 
prophecies  came  into  existence  at  a  later  time  in 
accordance  with  the  general  Christian  supposition 
that  Jesus  must  have  known  all  about  His  own  death 
before  it  took  place.  Still  I  do  not  think  that  this 
hypothesis  is  altogether  sufficient  to  account  for  their 
presence  in  the  gospel  narrative.  It  is  not  on  the 
whole  unUkely  that  Jesus  may  have  come  to  believe 
such  a  thing  possible,  and  to  say  so.  When  He  read 
the  second  Isaiah  He  could  not  but  feel  the  appli- 
cability to  His  own  case  of  the  description  of  the  fate 
of  the  righteous  servant  who  was  at  first  to  be  re- 
jected by  his  own  people,  and  afterwards  ''see  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied."  Probably 
this  description  of  the  Suffering  Servant  of  God  was 
inspired  by  the  recollection  of  what  had  been  en- 
dured by  Jeremiah  before  and  in  the  period  of  the 
great  captivity.  This  brave  man  had  stood  alone 
in  his  endeavour  to  dissuade  the  Jewish  monarch 
and  people  from  the  course  which  finally  led  to  their 
subjugation  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  For  doing  this  he 
had  been  ostracised  by  his  contemporaries,  treated 
with  derision  and  hatred,  imprisoned,  maltreated, 
and,  not  improbably,  murdered.  When  in  after 
days  his  unfortunate  countrymen  looked  back  upon 
his  warnings  they  reverenced  his  name  as  much  as 
they  had  formerly  execrated  it,  and,  at  the  time 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  67 

when  Jesus  began  His  public  ministry,  Jeremiah 
was  popularly  referred  to  as  the  prophet  in  com- 
parison with  all  other  prophets.  It  was  a  high 
compUment  to  Jesus  that  some  of  the  people  who 
heard  Him  wondered  whether  He  might  be  Jere- 
miah risen  from  the  dead.  In  accordance  with  the 
thought  of  the  second  Isaiah,  therefore,  it  was  not 
unnatural  that  Jesus  should  think  of  the  fate  of 
Jeremiah  as  Ukely  to  be  His  own.  He  saw  in  what 
this  man  had  done  and  endured  a  grander  kind  of 
Messiahship  than  that  of  contemporary  expecta- 
tion, and  yet  He  saw  no  necessity  for  altogether 
abandoning  the  latter  either.  In  His  mind  the  two 
became  interwoven,  with  the  result  that  He  came 
to  accept  as  inevitable  His  temporary  failure,  and 
to  look  forward  to  subsequent  success.  Probably 
He  came  to  this  conclusion  slowly  and  hesitatingly, 
even  unwiUingly.  He  had  to  reconcile  Himself  to 
the  idea  of  dying  a  violent  death  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
three;  but  at  the  same  time  He  assured  Himself 
that  that  would  not  be  the  final  chapter  after  all, 
for  God  would  never  permit  evil  to  obtain  the  mas- 
tery. It  is  quite  conceivable,  therefore,  that  He 
thought  of  Himself  as  coming  again  in  triumph  from 
the  further  side  of  death  to  inaugurate  the  Kingdom. 
This  may  seem  to  some  like  the  self-delusion  of  a 
young  enthusiast,  but  surely  it  was  something  more : 
it  was  a  firm  reUance  upon  the  working  of  the  im- 
mutable laws  of  righteousness,  and  a  confidence  that 
in  the  long  result  good  could  not  be  worsted  by  evil. 


68         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Where  the  idea  of  a  resurrection  on  the  third  day 
came  from  we  cannot  be  sure.  Jesus  may  have  used 
the  expression  or  He  may  not;  the  notion  is  not  pecu- 
liar to  Christianity.  It  should  not  be  regarded  as 
an  exact  statement,  but  as  a  phrase  expressive  of  the 
nearness  of  the  triumph  of  good.  Thus  (Hosea  vi.  2) 
we  read:  "After  two  days  will  he  revive  us;  on  the 
third  day  he  will  raise  us  up  and  we  shall  live  before 
him." 

This  was  the  way  in  which,  apparently,  Jesus 
spoke  towards  the  close  of  His  ministry  about  what 
must  have  looked  like  the  overthrow  of  all  His  hopes. 
And  yet,  as  the  record  of  His  anguish  of  mind  in  the 
Garden  of  Gethsemane  on  the  night  of  His  arrest 
serves  to  demonstrate.  He  did  not  always  succeed  in 
convincing  Himself  that  this  course  of  events  was 
for  the  best.  His  great  soul  recoiled  from  that  last 
humiliation.  It  was  only  when  it  became  inevitable 
that  He  surrendered  Himself  to  it.  Even  then  His 
confidence  that  all  would  come  right  in  the  end 
seems  for  a  moment  to  have  failed  Him  on  the  cross. 
The  cry,  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  for- 
saken me?"  needs  no  theological  interpretation.  It 
was  a  cry  wrung  from  a  breaking  heart,  and  no 
wonder. 

Jesus'  idea  of  the  Kingdom;  i.  His  dualism. — 
What,  then,  was  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  which 
Jesus  held  and  taught,  and  in  what  respect  did  it 
differ  from  that  of  His  contemporaries?  These  are 
questions  to  v'  'c}^  a  complete  answer  is  impossible, 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  69 

for  we  have  nothing  to  go  upon  except  these  frag- 
mentary gospel  records  written  long  after  the  oc- 
currences we  have  been  examining.  But,  on  the 
whole,  to  be  honest,  I  feel  we  must  admit  that  there 
is  very  httle,  if  anything,  which  differentiates  the 
essential  teaching  of  Jesus  from  that  of  the  other 
teachers  of  His  time  beyond  the  fact  that  it  was 
simple  and  clear,  and  went  straight  to  the  root  of 
the  matter  in  hand.  He  never  repudiated  the  Jew- 
ish law,  but  he  did  not  hesitate  to  abrogate  some  of 
its  precepts  when  they  were  out  of  harmony  with  His 
fundamental  principle  of  love  for  God  and  man. 

"Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said,  'Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  and  hate  thine  enemy'"  (Lev.  xix.  18).  "But  I 
say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  and  pray  for  them  that 
persecute  you"  (Matt.  v.  44). 

The  force  of  a  saying  like  this  is  best  understood 
when  it  is  remembered  that  to  a  Jew  the  enemy 
was  the  foreigner,  and  that  at  the  moment  the  op- 
pressor for  whom  they  were  thus  exhorted  to  pray 
was  the  cruel  Roman ;  nothing  could  be  much  more 
completely  in  contrast  with  the  mood  of  the  time 
than  this  particular  utterance.  But  I  do  not  care 
to  inquire  too  minutely  into  the  meaning  of  special 
sayings.  The  main  difference  between  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  and  that  of  the  orthodox  instructors  of  the 
public  was  that  the  latter  were  always  hair-splitting 
as  to  what  was  lawful  and  what  was  not,  whereas 
Jesus  penetrated  straight  to  the  spirit  of  the  deed, 


70         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

whatever  it  might  be.  The  inwardness  of  His 
ethical  teaching  stood  thus  in  sharp  contrast  to  the 
casuistry  and  niggling  regulations  of  Pharisees  and 
scribes.  These  laid  stress  upon  ordinance  and  rule; 
Jesus  upon  spirit  and  motive.  In  other  respects 
(according  to  the  gospel  writers)  Jesus  thought  much 
the  same  as  other  people.  His  cosmogony  was 
that  of  ordinary  Judaism  —  Heaven  just  above 
the  sky.  Hades  down  below  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
He  believed  in  the  popular  dualism  of  the  time 
about  the  essential  opposition  between  the  King- 
dom of  God  in  heaven  and  that  of  Satan  on  earth. 
He  held  that  what  the  world  needed  was  that  Satan 
should  be  driven  out  thoroughly  and  speedily. 
He  supposed  that  His  special  mission  was  to  an- 
nounce this  coming  overthrow.  He  believed,  too, 
that  all  the  ills  which  afflicted  mankind,  especially 
the  people  of  God,  were  due  to  the  wickedness  of 
Satan  and  his  host  of  evil  spirits.  Hence  the  first 
sign  that  God  was  about  to  put  an  end  to  the  domin- 
ion of  Satan  was  the  fact  that  His  messenger  was 
able  to  perform  miracles  of  healing.  I  have  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  a  good  many  of  such  miracles 
took  place,  partly  because  of  the  magnetic  person- 
ality of  Jesus,  and  partly  because  people  expected 
such  things;  plenty  of  similar  supernormal  events 
are  taking  place  in  our  midst  to-day.  There  is  not 
much  evidence  that  Jesus  was  greatly  influenced 
by  current  pessimism  concerning  the  manner  of 
the  entrance  of  evil  into  the  world  and  the  fixing 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  7 1 

of  the  yoke  of  Satan  upon  the  necks  of  the  chosen 
people ;  but  there  is  a  suggestion  of  it  in  the  parable 
of  the  Tares,  for  example  — 

"The  good  seed  are  the  children  of  the  kingdom;  but  the 
tares  are  the  children  of  the  wicked  one ;  and  the  enemy  that 
sowed  them  is  the  devil"  (Matt.  xiii.  38,  39). 

It  is  evident,  too,  that  Jesus  thought  of  certain 
forms  of  disease  as  the  result  of  demon  possession. 
When  accused  of  casting  out  devils  through  the  prince 
of  the  devils  His  reply  was  — 

"If  Satan  casteth  out  Satan,  he  is  divided  against  himself; 
how  then  shall  his  kingdom  stand?  .  .  .  But  if  I  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  cast  out  devils,  then  is  the  Kingdom  of  God  come  upon 
you"  (Matt.  xii.  26,  28). 

On  another  occasion,  according  to  Luke,  when 
healing  a  woman  who  "was  bowed  together,  and 
could  in  no  wise  lift  herself  up,"  He  was  called  to 
account  by  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue  for  disregard- 
ing the  Sabbath.    His  defence  was  — 

"Ought  not  this  woman,  being  a  daughter  of  Abraham, 
whom  Satan  had  bound,  lo,  these  eighteen  years,  to  have 
been  loosed  from  this  bond  on  the  sabbath  day?"  (Luke 
xiii.  16). 

ii.  His  eschatology.  —  It  seems  probable,  also, 
that  Jesus  fully  accepted  the  ordinary  Jewish  es- 
chatology of  the  time: 

"The  harvest  is  the  end  of  the  world  (or,  literally,  the 
consummation  of  the  age) ;  and  the  reapers  are  angels.  As 
therefore  the  tares  are  gathered  up  and  burned  with  fire; 


72         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

so  shall  it  be  in  the  end  of  the  world.  The  Son  of  man  shall 
send  forth  His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom 
all  things  that  cause  stumbling,  and  them  that  do  iniquity, 
and  shall  cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire:  there  shall  be 
weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  Then  shall  the  righteous 
shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father"  (Matt, 
xiii.  39-43)- 

Equally  emphatic  is  the  parable  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment, as  it  is  usually  called,  but  which  is  certainly 
not  a  last  judgment  in  the  theological  sense  of  the 
word : 

"When  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  His  glory,  and  all 
the  angels  with  Him,  then  shall  He  sit  on  the  throne  of  His 
glory:  and  before  Him  shall  be  gathered  all  the  nations: 
and  He  shall  separate  them  one  from  another,  as  the  shep- 
herd separateth  the  sheep  from  the  goats:  and  He  shall  set 
the  sheep  on  His  right  hand,  but  the  goats  on  the  left.  Then 
shall  the  King  say  unto  them  on  His  right  hand.  Come,  ye 
blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Then  shall  He  say 
also  unto  them  on  the  left  hand.  Depart  from  Me,  ye  cursed, 
into  the  eternal  fire  which  is  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 
angels"  (Matt.  xxv.  31-34,  41). 

There  is  no  need  to  suppose  that  Jesus  actually 
uttered  these  words  as  they  now  stand;  in  fact,  it 
is  quite  probable  that  He  did  not,  for  there  is  a 
universalism  about  them  which  did  not  find  a  place 
in  primitive  Christian  preaching.  There  is  no 
suggestion  here  that  the  Jews  would  be  treated 
any  dififerently  from  other  people  when  the  King- 
dom came,  so  the  present  form  of  the  parable  must 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  73 

date  from  a  time  subsequent  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
in  A.D.  70.  It  should  be  clearly  understood  that 
this  kind  of  a  judgment  was  not  really  the  end  of 
the  world  at  all ;  it  was  the  purification  of  the  world 
and  the  beginning  of  a  brighter  and  better  day  for  the 
righteous.  The  externals  of  the  judgment  as  here  de- 
scribed are  taken  directly  from  the  Book  of  Daniel,  and 
are  quite  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  ordinary 
Jewish  apocalyptic  literature  of  the  period  in  which 
it  arose.  But  the  truly  remarkable  thing  about 
the  parable  is  the  criterion  it  presents  of  the  quali- 
fication which  would  be  required  for  membership 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  That  qualification  was 
goodness,  and  the  goodness  referred  to  was  not  the 
righteousness  of  scribes  and  Pharisees,  which  con- 
sisted in  rendering  formal  obedience  to  the  pre- 
scriptions of  the  Jewish  law,  but  a  goodness  which 
showed  itself  in  works  of  mercy  and  compassion 
to  suffering  human  kind.  It  is  here  that  I  seem  to 
hear  the  voice  of  Jesus.  Not  a  word  about  belief; 
not  a  word  about  correctness  of  creed;  not  a  word 
about  piety;  not  a  word  even  about  the  duty  of 
confessing  the  Master  Himself,  a  duty  in  which  the 
primitive  Christians  certainly  believed  with  all  their 
hearts.     But  — 

"Lord,  when  saw  we  Thee  hungry,  and  fed  Thee?  or 
thirsty,  and  gave  Thee  drink?  And  when  saw  we  Thee  a 
stranger,  and  took  Thee  in?  or  naked,  and  clothed  Thee? 
And  when  saw  we  Thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came  unto 
Thee?    And  the   King  shall  answer  and  say  unto   them, 


74         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these 
My  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto  Me"  (Matt. 
XXV.  37-40). 

The  framework  of  the  parable  is  the  ordinary 
Jewish  ideas  of  the  time  about  the  coming  of  the 
Son  of  man  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  and  the 
shutting  of  the  wicked  down  in  Hades.  This  is 
what  everybody  thought,  and  there  is  no  more 
reason  to  attribute  it  to  Jesus  than  to  any  one 
else.  But  the  central  truth  of  the  parable,  the 
truth  concerning  the  genuine  test  of  righteousness, 
was  not  what  everybody  thought;  and  it  is,  there- 
fore, not  unreasonable  to  inf^r  that  this  is  the  part 
of  the  parable  in  which  we  have  the  teaching  most 
characteristic  of  Jesus. 

iii.  His  moral  intensity. — There  is  thus  no 
documentary  evidence  that  Jesus  transcended  the 
level  of  His  time  in  His  rehgious  beUefs,  but  He 
charged  those  beliefs  with  a  moral  passion  which 
had  long  been  wanting  to  them,  and  it  was  this 
which  in  the  end  brought  Him  to  the  Cross.  He 
said  not  a  word,  nor  produced  an  idea,  which  in 
some  form  or  other  had  not  found  expression  before ; 
but  He  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  mere 
formalism,  cant,  or  pretence.  He  did  not  com- 
promise; He  would  not  speak  evil  doers  fair  merely 
because  they  were  powerful.  He  attempted  to 
apply  His  own  principles  consistently  all  the  way 
round,  and  the  result  was  that  He  had  to  be  silenced. 
He  saw  that  as  things  then  were  the  poor  and  the 


^^s^U F O Pv ^JJ^HE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  75 

weak  had  to  go  to  the  wall;  the  rich  and  the  strong 
had  things  all  their  own  way.  What  made  Him 
most  angry  was  not  the  doings  of  the  Roman  con- 
queror, but  of  the  hypocritical  religious  leaders 
of  His  own  race.  He  did  not  begin  by  saying 
this.  On  the  contrary,  He  seems  to  have  hoped  to 
win  them,  and  there  is  an  observable  difference  in 
the  style  of  His  earher  as  compared  with  His  later 
preaching.  It  was  only  when  He  found  that  His 
endeavours  were  thwarted  by  the  orthodox  religious 
orders  that  He  broke  out  in  stern  denunciation 
against  them.  It  seems  to  me  that  at  first  He 
thought  everybody  would  listen  gladly  to  what 
He  had  to  say  about  the  good  time  that  was  coming 
for  Israel,  and  prepare  themselves  accordingly. 
He  declared  that  in  the  new  Kingdom  there  could 
be  no  more  question  of  precedence  and  pride  of 
place.  The  one  indispensable  requisite  for  inclu- 
sion in  the  new  order  would  be  humiUty  and  child- 
likeness  of  spirit.  There  could  be  no  possibihty 
of  a  happy  world  without  this,  and  yet  this  was  the 
very  opposite  of  the  temper  of  respectable  Jewish 
rehgion  in  that  day.  He  illustrated  this  principle 
by  His  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican, 
and  by  His  beautiful  action  in  taking  a  little  child 
and  setting  him  in  the  midst  of  a  company  of  jealous 
and  angry  men,  saying  at  the  same  time  — 

"Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a 
little  child,  he  shall  in  no  wise  enter  therein"  (Mark  x.  15). 

Again  — 


76  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

"Ye  know  that  they  which  are  accounted  to  rule  over  the 
Gentiles  lord  it  over  them;  and  their  great  ones  exercise 
authority  over  them.  But  it  is  not  so  among  you;  but  who- 
soever would  become  great  among  you,  shall  be  your  servant; 
and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you,  shall  be  the  bond- 
servant of  all"  (Mark  x.  42-44). 

It  is  obvious  that  in  this  He  was  perfectly  right. 
An  ideal  world  is  impossible  so  long  as  men  are 
arrogant,  domineering,  or  jealous  of  one  another. 
If  the  conditions  could  be  eliminated  out  of  which 
such  desires  arise,  we  should  have  secured  the  first 
essential  of  communal  happiness. 

iv.  His  views  on  the  possession  of  riches.  — 
Observing,  also,  as  He  could  not  fail  to  do,  the 
corrupting  influence  of  the  possession  of  wealth 
upon  the  moral  nature  Jesus  condemned  utterly 
the  desire  for  its  acquisition.  This  is  best  illus- 
trated in  the  story  of  His  recommendation  to  the 
rich  young  ruler: 

"Go,  sell  whatsoever  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor,  and 
thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven;  and  come,  follow  Me" 
(Mark  x.  21). 

It  is  quite  useless  to  maintain,  as  has  some- 
times been  done,  that  Jesus  did  not  mean  this  as 
a  counsel  of  universal  apphcation.  The  whole 
background  of  His  teaching  shows  that  He  did. 
He  does  not  say  that  the  possession  of  riches  is 
an  absolute  disquaUfication  for  membership  in 
the  coming  Kingdom,  but  he  holds  that  at  the 
best  they  are  a  hindrance,  for  they  tend  to  put  a 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD  77 

barrier  of  separation  between  man  and  man;  the 
ideal  social  order  would  therefore  be  one  in  which 
there  would  be  no  question  either  of  poverty  or 
riches.  Moreover,  Jesus  is  severe  upon  the  typical 
rich  man,  for,  not  without  reason.  He  saw  in  him 
the  oppressor  of  the  poor.  In  the  parable  of  Dives 
and  Lazarus  He  does  not  specify  any  particular 
offence  of  which  the  rich  man  had  been  guilty,  but 
He  sends  him  to  Hades  (Luke  xvi.  19-31).  In 
Luke's  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  too, 
the  first  beatitude  is  — 

"Blessed  are  ye  poor;   for  yours  is  the  kingdom  of  God" 
(Luke  vi.  20). 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  was  the  origi- 
nal form  of  the  utterance.  Matthew's  gospel  has 
been  not  inappropriately  styled  the  ecclesiastical 
gospel  on  account  of  its  tendency  to  improve  the 
occasion  in  the  manner  with  which  we  are  so 
famiUar  in  pulpit  exhortations  to-day.  Luke  is 
frankly  sociaUstic  in  his  way  of  presenting  the 
Master's  words;  he  is  always  thinking  of  the  poor, 
their  disabilities,  and  their  sorrows.  Probably  the 
first  and  third  gospels  both  drew  upon  the  same 
literary  source  in  their  presentation  of  the  body 
of  teaching  comprised  in  the  beatitudes  and  their 
immediate  context,  but,  if  so,  the  difference  in  em- 
phasis is  surprising.  Where  Matthew  talks  about 
hungering  and  thirsting  after  righteousness,  Luke 
bluntly  says  — 


78         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

"Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger  now;  for  ye  shall  be  filled'* 
(Luke  vi.  21). 

Matthew  speaks  of  the  reward  of  the  righteous, 
but  Luke  announces  the  doom  of  the  wealthy. 

"Woe  unto  you  that  are  rich!  for  ye  have  received  your 
consolation.  Woe  unto  you,  ye  that  are  full  now!  for  ye 
shall  hunger.  Woe  unto  you,  ye  that  laugh  now !  for  ye  shall 
mourn  and  weep"  (Luke  vi.  24,  25). 

If  this  be  the  way  in  which  Jesus  really  preached, 
the  spectacle  of  the  social  inequahties  of  the  time 
must  have  moved  Him  profoundly.  His  picture  of 
the  social  upheaval  which  He  believed  to  be  just  at 
hand  included  vengeance  upon  the  whole  class  of 
the  rich.  Plainly  He  was  on  the  side  of  the  poor, 
and  looked  at  the  rich  very  much  as  the  leaders  of 
the  French  democracy  looked  at  the  aristocrats  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Revolution.  He  declared  it 
to  be  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  King- 
dom of  God.  His  general  attitude  on  this  point 
was  not  modified  in  the  least  by  the  fact  that  He 
had  one  or  two  rich  adherents,  such  as  Joseph  of 
Arimathaea.  These  were  exceptions;  there  is  only 
too  much  probabihty  that  the  strictures  of  Jesus 
upon  the  holders  of  wealth  were  more  than  justified 
at  the  time. 

V.  His  censure  of  the  religious  leaders,  —  But  it 
was  upon  the  covetous  and  grasping  religious  aris- 
tocracy that  His  denunciations  fell  most  heavily. 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  79 

In  all  the  literature  of  invective  I  know  nothing 
more  scathing  than  His  attack  on  this  order  as  re- 
corded in  Matthew  xxiii.  The  whole  chapter  is 
quotable  and  absolutely  to  the  point,  but  the  fol- 
lowing verses  express  most  fully  its  spirit  and 
intention :  — 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against  men ;  for  ye  neither 
go  in  yourselves,  neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  entering 
to  go  in. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  devour  widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretence  make  long 
prayers;   therefore  ye  shall  receive  the  greater  damnation- 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  compass  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte,  and  when  he 
is  made,  ye  make  him  twofold  more  a  child  of  hell  than 
yourselves. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  tithe  mint  and  anise  and  cummin,  and  have  left  undone 
the  weightier  matters  of  the  law,  judgment,  and  mercy,  and 
faith;  but  these  ye  ought  to  have  done,  and  not  to  have  left 
the  other  undone.  Ye  blind  guides,  which  strain  out  the  gnat, 
and  swallow  the  camel.  .  .  . 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for 
ye  build  the  sepulchres  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish  the  tombs 
of  the  righteous,  and  say,  If  we  had  been  in  the  days  of  our 
fathers,  we  should  not  have  been  partakers  with  them  in  the 
blood  of  the  prophets.  Wherefore  ye  witness  to  yourselves, 
that  ye  are  sons  of  them  that  slew  the  prophets.  Fill  ye  up 
then  the  measure  of  your  fathers.  Ye  serpents,  ye  offspring 
of  vipers,  how  shall  ye  escape  the  judgment  of  hell!" 

Strong  language  this!  One  wonders  what  the  re- 
ligious press  of  this  country  would  say  about  it 


8o         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

nowadays.  For  the  people  thus  denounced  have 
their  representatives  in  the  Christian  churches  of 
this  much-favoured  land  of  ours.  But  what  chiefly 
impresses  me  about  the  use  of  this  language  is  that 
it  gives  us  an  entirely  different  idea  of  Jesus  from 
that  which  is  usually  held  up  for  Christian  adora- 
tion and  imitation.  Here  was  a  being  aflame  with 
sympathy  for  the  masses  and  indignation  for  their 
oppressors.  It  is  no  use  saying  that  He  was  not 
alive  to  the  social  wrongs  of  the  age,  for  He  was, 
and  this  language  proves  it.  It  shows  what  brought 
Him  to  His  death;  it  shows,  too,  why  the  orthodox 
hated  and  feared  Him.  Not  that  He  pandered  to 
the  multitude;  He  never  did  that.  But  with  His 
whole  soul  He  loathed  the  self-complacency  of  the 
ordinary  religionists  who  were  content  to  be  on  the 
side  of  privilege  without  lifting  a  finger  to  help  the 
unprivileged,  and  yet  talked  about  righteousness! 
What  would  Jesus  say  if  He  were  to  appear  in  our 
midst  again  to-day?  Can  there  be  much  doubt 
about  the  matter?  Are  we  still  doing  the  same 
thing  —  talking  about  righteousness  as  though  it 
could  be  separated  from  social  justice?  Of  course 
we  are,  and  the  hollow  sham  will  have  to  come  to 
an  end. 

That  Jesus  thought  the  end  was  coming  very 
speedily  is  not  surprising,  and  is  no  sign  of  credulity 
on  His  part.  There  are  people  in  Russia  talking 
much  the  same  way  to-day,  and  perhaps  they  too 
may  prove  to  be  wrong.    Jesus  had  been  trained  to 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  8l 

think  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  could  not  be  very 
far  off.  It  was  only  when  He  saw  that  the  moral 
forces  of  the  hour  had  become  concentrated  in  His 
own  person  that  He  began  to  beheve  that  He  was 
the  divinely  appointed  deUverer  through  whom  it 
should  come.  How  He  expected  God  to  interfere 
we  do  not  know.  The  most  probable  explanation 
appears  to  be  that  when  He  saw  failure  staring  Him 
in  the  face  He  looked  forward  to  a  second  advent  in 
which  He  should  be  accompanied  by  legions  of 
angels  for  the  overthrow  of  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world.  What  He  has  actually  accomplished  in 
human  history  has  proved  to  be  far  greater,  for  His 
faith  in  the  God  of  righteousness  has  become  the 
dynamic  of  most  of  the  great  achievements  that 
have  been  effected  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
human  race  from  the  bondage  of  iniquity  during 
the  past  fifteen  hundred  years.  Take  Jesus  out  of 
western  history,  and  what  would  be  left?  I  deny 
that  Jesus  belongs  or  ever  has  belonged  to  the  ec- 
clesiastical order  and  the  forces  of  conservatism  in 
Church  and  State.  He  belongs  to  the  democracy, 
and  the  democracy  has  never  quite  lost  sight  of  the 
fact.  The  words  which  Mark  Rutherford  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  the  agitator  Caillaud  appropriately 
express  the  true  significance  of  the  character  and 
work  of  Jesus  — 

"What  said  Jesus —  that  He  came  to  send  a  sword?  Of 
course  He  did.  Every  idea  is  a  sword.  What  a  God  He  was ! 
He  was  the  first  who  ever  cared  for  the  people —  for  the  real 

G 


82  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

people :  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  fools,  the  weak-minded,  the 
slaves.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  thought  nothing  of  these. 
I  salute  Thee,  O  Thou  Son  of  the  People!"  and  Caillaud 
took  down  a  little  crucifix  which,  strange  to  say,  always 
hung  in  his  room,  and  reverently  inclined  himself  to  it.  "A 
child  of  the  people,"  he  continued,  "in  everything —  simple, 
foolish,  wise,  ragged.  Divine,  martyred  Hero." 

With  all  this  we  may  without  hesitation  recog- 
nise the  omissions  of  Jesus  even  in  the  expression 
of  His  own  ideals.  It  would  be  ridiculous  to  call 
Him  a  Socialist,  in  the  ordinary  everyday  use  of 
that  word,  for  He  had  no  economic  theory  whatever; 
it  is  unlikely  that  He  ever  felt  the  need  of  any.  He 
laid  down  no  principles  for  the  guidance  of  His  fol- 
lowers in  their  social  relationships,  marriage,  the 
family,  and  citizenship.  His  belief  in  the  approach- 
ing disruption  of  the  existing  social  order,  and  the 
substitution  of  another  by  supernatural  means  al- 
lowed little  room  for  theorising.  He  even  seems  to 
have  thought  that  marriage  and  procreation  would 
be  at  an  end  with  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  although  that  establishment  was  to  take 
place  on  earth. 

"For  in  the  resurrection  they  neither  marry,  nor  are 
given  in  marriage,  but  are  as  angels  in  heaven"  (Matt.  xxii. 
30).  "For  as  in  those  days  which  were  before  the  flood  they 
were  eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage, 
until  the  day  that  Noah  entered  into  the  ark,  and  they  knew 
not  until  the  flood  came,  and  took  them  all  away;  so  shall  be 
the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man"  (Matt.  xxiv.  38,  39). 

This  view  as  to  the  future  coexisted  in  His  mind 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  83 

with  strong  and  definite  opinions  concerning  the 
sacredness  of  the  marriage  bond  under  present 
conditions.  The  same  anticipation  of  the  break-up 
of  social  relations  led  to  His  forbidding  care  for  the 
morrow,  a  perfectly  impossible  maxim  for  present- 
day  civilisation;  for,  no  doubt,  Jesus  meant  that 
it  was  not  worth  while  to  pay  much  attention  to  the 
present,  seeing  that  the  great  change  was  so  immi- 
nent. He  gave  no  hint  as  to  what  kind  of  laws 
there  would  be  in  the  new  order,  or  whether  there 
would  be  any  laws  at  all.  He  submitted  to  paying 
taxes  to  the  Roman  power,  because  He  was  con- 
vinced that  it  would  not  be  for  long,  and  in  any  case 
there  were  wrongs  that  needed  to  be  righted  in  the 
very  constitution  of  Jewish  society  independently 
of  Roman  rule.  He  said  nothing  about  the  dignity 
of  labour,  or  the  right  of  the  worker  to  the  product 
of  his  labour.  He  had  a  sense  of  natural  beauty — 
quite  in  contrast  with  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  for 
instance,  who  passed  through  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  districts  in  the  world  in  the  course  of  his 
missionary  journeys,  and  never  says  a  word  about 
them  —  but  He  did  not  show  either  sympathy  or 
acquaintance  with  Art.  Of  philosophy  and  science 
He  knew  nothing.  The  only  literature  He  quotes 
is  that  of  Israel.  He  paints  no  pictures  of  the 
future  at  all  comparable  to  Mr.  Bellamy's  ''Looking 
Backward,"  or  Mr.  H.  G.Wells's  "Modern  Utopia." 
No,  He  leaves  the  future  entirely  to  God;  drafts  no 
constitutions,  and  elaborates  no  schemes  of  industrial 


84  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

organisation.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  and  more 
inchoate  than  the  social  ethics  of  Jesus.  We  can- 
not accept  them  in  their  entirety  and  without  ques- 
tion, for  they  leave  whole  regions  of  modern  life 
untouched.  But  the  one  outstanding  fact  upon 
which  there  cannot  be  two  opinions  is  the  fact  that 
Jesus  preached  an  ideal  social  order  on  earth  when 
He  preached  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  that  He  was 
driven  to  do  so  by  His  clear  perception  of  the  ills 
under  which  His  countrymen  suffered  in  a  time 
when  justice  for  the  oppressed  was  seldom  to  be 
had. 

To  sum  up.  We  have  seen  that  Jesus  was  to 
a  large  extent  the  product  and  inheritor  of  a  long 
historic  tradition.  He  came  into  an  environment 
where  expectation  concerning  the  Kingdom  of  God 
was  already  widespread,  and  had  certain  definite 
ideas  attaching  to  it  which  He  was  able  to  take  for 
granted  in  addressing  the  Jewish  public.  There 
were  many  who  thought  that  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
as  popularly  understood,  "should  immediately 
appear"  (Luke  xix.  ii).  He  took  up  and  con- 
tinued the  work  of  a  great  preacher  whose  message 
was  based  on  this  assumption.  He  shared,  appar- 
ently, in  the  ordinary  belief  of  His  time  and  race 
that  the  Kingdom  would  come  suddenly  and  super- 
naturally,  and  would  mean  the  restoration  and 
exaltation  of  the  Jewish  theocracy  of  earlier  days; 
later  on  He  modified  this  belief,  because  of  His 
disappointment  at  the  materialism  of  the  people 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  8$ 

to  whom  He  preached.  He  wished  His  hearers 
to  understand  that  the  Kingdom  would  be  one  of 
social  and  individual  righteousness,  peace,  and 
brotherhood,  "on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  It 
was  some  time  before  He  permitted  Himself  to  be 
called  the  Messiah,  and  He  introduced  a  new  ele- 
ment into  the  conception,  namely,  that  the  deliverer 
would  have  to  suffer  in  the  discharge  of  His  voca- 
tion. At  the  close  of  His  ministry  He  seems  to 
have  come  to  face  the  fact  that  He  would  be  rejected 
and  put  to  death,  and  therefore  that  His  work  could 
only  be  consummated  by  a  second  advent,  which 
would  be  exactly  like  what  popular  expectation  had 
already  pictured  concerning  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah.  He  believed  that  after  the  judgment 
which  would  then  ensue  ''the  meek  should  inherit 
the  earth."  Membership  in  the  new  Kingdom 
would  be  the  prerogative  of  those  who  were  humble 
in  spirit  and  poor  in  substance;  He  considered  that 
there  was  small  prospect  of  any  rich  man  being  able 
to  qualify  for  it.  He  fell  foul  of  the  religious  lead- 
ers of  the  time  on  account  of  their  formalism, 
hypocrisy,  and  covetousness,  which  permitted  them 
to  call  themselves  righteous  without  being  just  and 
neighbourly  in  their  dealings  with  the  oppressed 
and  unprivileged.  His  view  of  the  structure  of 
the  universe  was  that  of  His  time,  as  was  His  belief 
that  ''the  prince  of  this  world"  was  the  prime 
author  of  all  the  sufferings  of  humanity.  To  Him 
the  whole  cosmic  drama  was  a  conflict  between 


86         CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

God  and  Satan,  in  which  Satan  was  triumphant  for 
the  moment,  but  would  be  overthrown  when  the 
Kingdom  came  with  power.  He  was  convinced 
that  His  own  temporary  failure  was  permitted  by 
God  in  order  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  the  wicked- 
ness of  Satan  and  his  human  servants:  *'This  is 
your  hour,  and  the  power  of  darkness"  (Luke  xxii. 
53).  He  had  no  economic  theories;  no  interest  in 
industrialism;  and  laid  down  no  directions  for  the 
administration  of  the  ideal  State,  or  the  guidance 
of  the  individual  in  his  social  relationships;  His 
idea  was  supernatural  revolution,  not  social  evolu- 
tion. But  the  one  undeniable  and  all-important 
fact  about  the  preaching  of  this  greatest  of  the  sons 
of  men  is  that  it  was  inspired  by  a  profound  belief 
in  the  coming  of  a  better  day  and  an  ideal  human 
society  on  earth.  He  never  says  a  word  about  going 
to  heaven,  for  the  plain  and  simple  reason  that  all 
His  hopes  were  bound  up  with  the  realisation  of 
heaven  here.  His  illusions  were  those  of  the  period 
in  which,  and  the  people  among  whom,  He  did 
His  work;  His  ideal  is  for  all  time,  and  is  the  in- 
spiration of  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  human 
aspiration  and  effort  to-day. 

One  thing  must  not  be  lost  sight  of.  The  prob- 
abilities are  that  Jesus  was  far  greater  than  the 
reporters  of  His  words  have  been  able  to  show. 
I  feel  that  He  could  not  really  have  been  as  largely 
influenced  by  local  and  temporary  conditions  as 
the  gospel  records  make  it  appear.    But  we  have 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  87 

no  Other  evidence  to  go  upon,  and  the  gospels  have 
at  least  the  inestimable  value  of  showing  us  where 
the  dynamic  of  the  Christian  religion  came  from, 
and  what  it  was  that  the  followers  of  Jesus  were 
aiming  at.  Christianity  was  the  product  of  ascer- 
tainable social  and  intellectual  conditions.  Its  ob- 
jective was  the  deliverance  of  mankind  from  the 
power  of  all  that  makes  life  dark  and  sad.  It  had 
no  other  objective;  and,  if  the  social  attritions  of 
the  time  in  which  it  arose  had  not  produced  a  cry- 
ing sense  of  need,  the  new  gospel  would  never  have 
had  a  hearing  at  all.  The  words  of  Jesus  as  re- 
corded in  the  first  three  gospels  are  a  mirror  of  the 
mind  of  the  humble  evangelists  who  first  preached 
Christianity  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  in  the 
Graeco-Roman  world. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD 

n.   In  Primitive  Christianity 

Nationalism  of  primitive  Christianity.  —  We  now 
come  to  the  consideration  of  the  place  which  the 
Kingdom  of  God  occupied  in  apostolic  preaching, 
and  the  reason  why  it  continued  to  be  associated 
with  the  name  of  Jesus,  although  Jesus  Himself  had 
apparently  been  silenced  in  a  most  cruel  and  tragical 
fashion.  The  first  thing  to  be  clearly  understood 
in  this  connection  is  that  the  primitive  Christians 
thought  almost  precisely  what  the  Jews  did  about 
the  Kingdom  and  the  manner  of  its  coming.  The 
one  great  point  of  difference  between  Jew  and 
Christian  was  that  the  latter  declared  Jesus  to  be 
the  Messiah,  whereas  the  former  contemptuously 
maintained  that  He  was  not.  In  practically  all 
other  respects  their  views  and  expectations  were 
identical.  The  Christians  did  not  know  that  they 
had  a  new  religion;  they  supposed  themselves  to 
be  loyal  Jews,  just  as  the  Methodists  eighteen  cen- 
turies later  supposed  themselves  to  be  orthodox 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  until  they  were 
turned  out  of  it.    There  was  one  conspicuous  differ- 

S8 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  89 

ence  between  orthcxlox  Judaism  and  the  Judaism  of 
the  followers  of  Jesus;  the  former  was  dis-spirited 
and  morally  powerless,  while  the  latter  was  full  of 
enthusiasm  and  spiritual  energy.  We  have  already 
seen  that  what  chiefly  differentiated  the  preaching 
of  Jesus  from  that  of  the  ordinary  religious  teachers 
of  the  time  was  the  moral  passion  that  informed  it; 
exactly  the  same  difference  is  observable  between 
Jews  and  Christians  in  New  Testament  times. 

The  followers  of  Jesus  did  not  call  themselves 
Christians;  they  never  thought  of  such  a  thing. 
We  read  that  ''  the  disciples  were  called  Chris- 
tians first  in  Antioch  "  (Acts  xi.  26),  but  we  do  not 
read  that  they  ever  voluntarily  assumed  the 
name.  Like  the  terms  Quaker  and  Puritan,  the 
name  "  Christian  "  was  at  first  fastened  upon  its 
wearers  as  a  sort  of  popular  nickname,  by  which 
they  were  distinguished  from  ordinary  folk. 
Even  then  the  name  could  not  have  been  one 
which  took  its  rise  in  Jewish  circles,  for,  literally 
construed,  it  meant  believers  in  or  followers  of 
the  Messiah.  No  orthodox  Jew  could  admit  for 
a  moment  that  the  adherents  of  an  executed 
criminal  were  genuine  believers  in  the  Messiah. 
Thus  the  very  name  is  an  indication  that  the 
new  religion  very  early  broke  its  way  through 
the  exclusiveness  of  ordinary  Jewish  religious 
ideas.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  such  an 
important  departure  could  have  been  made  with- 
out struggle  and  hesitation,  and  when  we  come 


QO  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

to  examine  New  Testament  literature  in  the  light 
thrown  upon  it  by  modern  historical  criticism, 
we  can  see  that  the  struggle  and  hesitation  must 
have  been  considerable.  The  step  thus  taken 
was  most  momentous  in  its  after  effects,  for  it 
made  possible  the  transformation  of  the  new 
religious  society  into  a  world-wide  organisation 
which  has  survived  the  decay  of  one  great  civili- 
sation, and  become  the  guiding  influence  in  the 
rise  of  another  which  is  still  vigorous,  and  bids 
fair  to  become  universal.  That  this  step  was 
ever  taken  at  all  was  due  principally  to  the 
energy  of  one  man,  Saul  of  Tarsus,  better  known 
as  the  apostle  Paul.  But  for  Paul  Christianity 
would  have  struggled  on  for  a  while  as  a  small 
Jewish  sect  and  then  disappeared  from  history; 
that  is,  unless  its  moral  power  might  have  been 
continued  such  as  to  break  through  all  barriers 
of  national  prejudice. 

The  situation  at  the  death  of  Jesus.  —  But  our 
chief  concern  at  present  is  with  the  gospel  which 
these  first  Christians  believed  they  had  to  preach. 
We  shall  see  as  we  proceed  that  Paul  had  some 
influence  upon  that  also,  and  not  wholly  for  the 
best.  In  order  that  we  may  understand  how 
this  came  about,  let  us  briefly  examine  the  situa- 
tion as  it  appeared  to  the  followers  of  Jesus  when 
their  Master  had  been  put  to  death.  Naturally 
enough,  their  first  feehng  must  have  been  one 
of  utter  consternation.    The  little  group  of  Gali- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  9I 

leans  who  had  accompanied  Him  on  His  last  journey 
to  Jerusalem  did  so  in  the  confident  expectation 
that  something  portentous  would  take  place  there, 
perhaps  a  pubUc  and  national  recognition  of  the 
Messianic  dignity  of  Jesus.  True,  they  had  some 
misgivings  on  the  subject,  if  we  are  to  credit  the 
Johannine  reference  to  the  anxiety  they  are  said 
to  have  felt  for  His  safety  in  the  great  capital. 
"Master,  the  Jews  of  late  sought  to  stone  Thee, 
and  goest  Thou  thither  again?"  But  we  may 
take  it  as  fairly  certain  that  their  simple-hearted 
enthusiasm  for  their  leader  led  them  to  form  the 
most  extravagant  anticipations  concerning  the  crisis 
which  they  supposed  to  be  at  hand.  They  even 
began  to  compete  with  each  other  for  positions 
of  authority  in  the  new  order  which  should  follow 
the  upheaval.  They  wanted  to  be  great  officials. 
"  Grant  that  these  my  two  sons  may  sit,  the  one  on 
Thy  right  hand,  and  the  other  on  the  left  in  Thy 
kingdom,"  was  a  fond  mother's  prayer  (Matt. 
XX.  21).  Jesus  did  not  rebuke  the  matter-of-fact 
nature  of  this  kind  of  expectation,  although  he 
forbade  selfish  ambition.  On  the  contrary.  He 
seems  to  have  encouraged  it: 

"Ye  are  they  which  have  continued  with  Me  in  My  trials; 
and  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  even  as  My  Father  ap- 
pointed unto  Me,  that  ye  may  eat  and  drink  at  My  table 
in  My  kingdom;  and  ye  shall  sit  on  thrones  judging  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel"  (Luke  xxii.  28-30). 

Could  anything  be  more  realistic?    Already  they 


92  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

were  partitioning  out  the  great  offices  of  State 
among  themselves  !  The  triumphal  entry  into  Jeru- 
salem would  go  far  to  confirm  their  vi\dd  belief 
in  the  golden  future,  and  nowhere  is  this  behef 
more  clearly  expressed  than  in  the  account  of  what 
took  place  at  the  Passover  celebration  in  the  upper 
room  —  the  Last  Supper,  as  it  afterwards  came 
to  be  called: 

"I  will  not  drink  henceforth  of  this  fruit  of  the  vine  until 
that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  with  you  in  My  Father's  king- 
dom" (Matt.  xxvi.  29). 

Sayings  like  these  show  how  strong  and  assured 
was  the  belief  of  these  simple  men  that  some  stu- 
pendous revolution  was  about  to  take  place.  That 
they  should  think  of  themselves  as  fitted  to  occupy 
such  exalted  stations  as  are  here  indicated  is  some- 
what pathetic,  and  shows  how  little  they  knew  of 
the  great  world  of  which  Rome  was  the  centre. 
When  they  actually  saw  their  Master  helpless  in  the 
hands  of  His  enemies;  when  they  heard  of  the  deri- 
sion and  cruelty  to  which  He  had  been  exposed; 
when  their  women  returned  from  watching  the 
dreadful  scene  on  Calvary,  their  disillusionment 
must  have  seemed  complete.  The  very  description 
of  the  sufferer,  affixed  to  the  cross  by  the  orders  of 
the  Roman  governor,  was  a  mockery  of  their  hopes 
—  '*  This  is  Jesus  the  King  of  the  Jews"  (Matt,  xxvii. 
37).  What  an  ending  to  a  glorious  dream!  Here 
were  they,  far  from  home,  rustic  strangers  in  the 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  93 

great  centre  of  Jewish  nationality,  and  their  leader 
was  dead,  slain  by  the  very  powers  they  had  thought 
Him  about  to  overthrow.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise than  that  terror  and  bewilderment  should  have 
taken  the  place  of  the  ardent  optimism  of  a  few  days 
before?  No  sadder  sentence  was  ever  uttered  than 
that  which  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cleopas  and  his 
friend  on  the  journey  to  Emmaus  on  the  third  day 
after  the  tragedy:  "We  trusted  that  it  had  been 
He  which  should  have  redeemed  Israel"  (Luke 
xxiv.  2l). 

The  revival  of  enthusiasm  through  belief  in  the 
Resurrection. — When  these  circumstances  are  taken 
into  account  it  becomes  evident  that  something  ex- 
traordinary must  have  taken  place  in  order  to  re- 
awaken in  these  Galileans  the  expectation  which  had 
been  buried  in  the  tomb  of  Jesus.  I  do  not  propose 
to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  vexed  and  intricate 
problem  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  further  than  to 
say  that  in  my  judgment  something  supernormal 
must  have  taken  place  before  these  terror-stricken 
followers  of  the  Master  could  be  transformed  into 
the  heroes  they  later  showed  themselves  to  be.  I 
may  say  at  once  that  none  of  Jhe  explanations  which 
reject  utterly  the  story  of  the  empty  tomb  appear 
to  me  to  meet  the  case.  By  some  means  these  men 
must  have  become  convinced  beyond  all  possibiUty 
of  doubt  that  their  Master  was  still  ahve,  and  that 
His  final  triumph  was  only  postponed.  I  admit 
that  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  the  various  New 


94         CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Testament  accounts  of  the  post-resurrection  ap- 
pearances of  Jesus,  but  that  does  not  invahdate  my 
contention  that  His  followers  must  have  beheved 
they  had  seen  and  conversed  with  Him  after  His 
death  and  burial.  Ignorant  peasants  may  perhaps 
be  induced  to  believe  anything,  but  they  do  not 
ordinarily  behave  with  the  moral  exaltation  which 
characterised  the  doings  of  the  apostoHc  band  within 
a  short  time  after  the  crucifixion.  Something  must 
have  happened.  Is  it  altogether  incredible  that  the 
famiUar  and  beloved  voice  spoke  once  again  from 
the  further  side  of  the  great  silence,  and  made  it 
plain  to  the  grief-stricken  little  community  that  the 
grave  is  not  the  last  word,  and  that  evil  has  no  real 
power  to  overthrow  anything  that  is  of  God  ?  Per- 
haps we  may  be  nearer  than  we  think  to  a  scientific 
demonstration  of  the  fact  that  self-consciousness 
does  not  perish  with  the  dissolution  of  the  physical 
body.  Without,  therefore,  entering  upon  a  defence 
of  any  particular  theory  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
let  me  emphasise  the  conclusion  that  the  first  Chris- 
tians must  have  believed  it  with  all  their  hearts; 
and  they  beheved  it  to  be  a  physical  resurrection, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  they  had  no  conception 
of  an  existence  apart  from  the  body.  This  state- 
ment opens  a  subject  I  have  not  yet  touched  upon, 
but  it  must  not  be  passed  over  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand apostolic  preaching,  and  particularly  that 
of  the  apostle  Paul.  We  shall  lose  nothing 
by  pausing  upon  this  point  for  a  moment;  on  the 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  95 

contrary,  we    may    gain    something    in  additional 
clearness. 

The  doctrinal  epistles.  —  New  Testament  criticism 
is  at  present  in  the  melting  pot,  and  it  would  be  a 
foolish  proceeding  to  hazard  any  confident  theory  as 
to  the  authorship  and  date  of  any  or  all  of  the  various 
writings  which  have  been  admitted  into  the  canon. 
But,  as  has  been  already  indicated,  the  main  im- 
portance of  these  writings,  so  far  as  our  present 
purpose  is  concerned,  is  the  general  idea  they  give 
as  to  the  subject-matter  of  primitive  Christian 
preaching.  If  it  should  turn  out  that  the  various 
letters  ascribed  to  Paul,  for  instance,  every  one 
belong  to  the  second  century  instead  of  the  first, 
this  will  not  render  them  valueless  from  our  point 
of  view.  It  may  be  that  Saul  of  Tarsus,  whose 
conversion,  and  some  of  whose  Christian  activities 
are  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  ought  not 
to  be  identified  with  the  Paul  who  wrote  Romans 
and  Galatians ;  but,  whether  or  no,  these  documents 
furnish  most  illuminating  evidence  as  to  the  way  in 
which  the  new  evangel  began  to  be  modified  in  its 
Graeco-Roman  environment.  We  now  begin  to  find 
the  purely  moral  and  social  bearing  of  the  original 
message  mixed  up  with  a  somewhat  elaborate 
theology,  partly  derived  from  Jewish  rabbinism  and 
partly  from  Greek  philosophy.  This  was  some- 
thing quite  new.  Jesus  Himself  appears  to  have 
had  no  theology  whatever,  or  if  He  had,  it  was  of 
the  simplest.    His  sympathies  and  interests  were 


96  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

entirely  practical,  although  based  upon  an  invincible 
belief  in  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God.  What 
He  wanted,  and  fully  expected  to  see  reahsed,  was 
an  ideal  Jewish  Commonwealth.  The  theological 
conceptions  afterwards  associated  with  His  person 
and  work,  especially  in  the  Pauline  epistles,  were 
utterly  foreign  to  His  mind,  and  would  probably 
have  been  quite  incomprehensible  to  Him. 

The  supposed  connection  between  sin  and  death.  — 
The  first  of  these  ideas  was  the  assumption  that  pain, 
sorrow,  and  death  entered  the  world  because  of  sin. 
There  is  no  hint  of  anything  of  the  kind  in  the 
words  ascribed  to  Jesus,  to  whom,  indeed,  such 
speculation  would  have  seemed  to  be  beside  the 
mark.  Jesus  never  propounded  riddles  as  to  how 
trouble  and  suffering  had  come  upon  His  country- 
men; His  problem  was  how  to  get  rid  of  them. 
Looking  into  the  past  of  the  Jewish  people,  He 
could  see  reason  enough  why  things  had  gone 
wrong,  and  He  did  not  waste  time  in  speculating 
as  to  what  the  sin  of  a  primitive  ancestor  might  or 
might  not  have  had  to  do  with  it.  But  in  the 
Pauline  theory  of  things  this  was  the  very  starting- 
point.  According  to  this  view  the  world  was  an 
ideally  perfect  place  to  live  in  until  by  some  un- 
specified act  of  transgression  on  the  part  of  the 
progenitors  of  the  human  race  the  whole  scheme 
had  become  disordered.  We  have  already  seen 
how  this  idea  arose  in  the  pessimism  of  the  age 
immediately  preceding  the  advent  of  Christianity. 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  97 

The  name  Adam  is  rather  vaguely  used  in  the 
Pauline  writings  to  signify  the  individual  or  genera- 
tion whose  disobedience  to  the  will  of  God  had 
brought  so  many  miseries  in  its  train.  This  is 
explicitly  stated  in  several  of  the  best  known  pas- 
sages in  these  Pauline  writings.     For  example: 

"Through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death 
through  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all 
sinned"  (Rom.  v.  12). 

According  to  this  view  it  is  evident  that  the 
principal  part  of  the  blame  for  the  way  in  which 
things  have  gone  wrong  should  rest  with  this 
primitive  ancestor,  whoever  he  may  have  been. 
But  in  apostolic  thought  there  also  appears  to 
have  been  present  the  assumption  that  this  primal 
act  of  transgression  was  like  the  opening  of  Pan- 
dora's box;  it  did  not  actually  create  evil,  but 
opened  the  door  to  it.  The  real  author  of  evil, 
or  personal  principle  of  evil,  was  the  "  prince  of 
the  power  of  darkness,"  or  "  prince  of  this 
world,"  or  *'  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air,  the 
spirit  that  now  worketh  in  the  children  of  dis- 
obedience," as  he  is  variously  called.  We  have 
already  seen  that  this  conception  was  probably 
derived  from  the  influence  of  Persian  dualism 
upon  Jewish  popular  religion.  Apparently, 
therefore,  Adam  was  partly  a  criminal  and  partly 
a  victim.  In  disobeying  God  he  placed  himself 
and   the  whole  earth-world   under  the  empire  of 


98  CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

Satan,  who  henceforth  became  the  ruler  of  it. 
PauUne  thought  does  not  seem  to  have  been  con- 
sistently clear  as  to  how  much  of  the  suffering  of 
mankind  was  due  to  the  displeasure  of  God  and 
how  much  to  the  malice  of  Satan,  but  the  main 
point  upon  which  it  insists  is  that  the  primal  act 
of  disobedience  gave  Satan  his  opportunity,  and 
introduced  discord  and  death  to  a  world  in 
which  neither  of  them  would  otherwise  ever 
have  been  known.  What  we  see  now  is  not 
creation  as  God  meant  it  to  be,  but  creation  as 
Adam  and  Satan  between  them  have  managed 
to  pollute  it.  Apparently,  but  for  that  original 
act  of  self-will  on  the  part  of  Adam,  neither  he 
nor  his  descendants  would  ever  have  had  to  die 
at  all,  they  would  just  have  gone  on  living  for  ever 
and  ever  in  a  perfectly  happy  world. 

How  the  Messiah  was  thought  to  have  conquered 
sin  and  death.  —  It  follows  from  this  that  the  first 
thing  to  be  done  in  order  to  get  the  world  right  would 
be  to  break  this  spell  which  Adam's  disobedience 
had  cast  over  the  whole  human  race.  The  plot  is 
not  unlike  that  of  the  children's  fairy  stories,  where 
the  prince  has  been  turned  into  a  beast  by  the 
enchantments  of  some  wicked  ogre.  In  this  case 
humanity  is  the  prince,  and  the  devil  is  the  ogre; 
what  was  wanted  was  that  some  one  should  break 
the  spell  under  which  all  men  were  doomed  to 
suffer  and  die.  According  to  the  Pauline  system, 
this  want   was  supplied   by  the  coniing  of  Jesus 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  .  99 

Christ  into  the  world.  The  Pauline  writers  identify 
Jesus  with  the  Logos,  or  divine  man,  or  Demiurgus 
of  Philonic  thought.  This  mighty  one  came  down 
from  the  heaven  just  above  the  sky,  was  miracu- 
lously born  into  the  world,  grew  up  like  an  ordinary 
man,  wrought  many  miracles,  and  then  submitted 
to  death  as  all  human  beings  had  had  to  do  since 
Adam's  fall.  His  soul  went  down  into  Hades  like 
those  of  other  people,  but  there  was  this  differ- 
ence between  Him  and  other  people,  that,  being 
sinless,  death  could  not  hold  Him  as  it  held 
ordinary  mortals;  He  rose  again  from  the  tomb, 
resumed  His  body,  and  went  up  again  into 
heaven  in  full  view  of  His  wondering  disciples. 
But  what  He  achieved  by  means  of  all  this  was 
very  important.  If  He  had  not  taken  human 
flesh,  lived  a  human  life,  and  died  a  human  death, 
He  would  not  have  been  able  to  identify  Himself 
with  human  lot,  and  so  we  should  still  have  had 
to  go  on  living  individually  our  few  suffering 
years,  and  then  passed  down  for  ever  into  the 
gloom  and  silence  of  Hades.  But  because  Jesus 
did  all  these  things,  especially  submitting  to  the 
death  penalty,  which  was  the  wages  of  sin,  He 
became  the  representative  of  mankind  in  severing 
the  entail  of  sin  and  breaking  the  power  of  death. 
It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  He  should  rise 
from  the  dead  in  order  to  do  this,  and  it  would 
have  been  of  no  use  for  Him  to  appear  as  a 
ghost;    He  must  conquer  this  world  by  resuming 


lOO       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

His  physical  body  in  the  very  region  where 
Satan  had  hitherto  been  master.  His  going  up 
into  heaven  would  only  be  for  a  short  time. 
Presently  He  would  come  back  again  with  all  the 
power  of  heaven  behind  Him  to  call  all  the 
dead  out  of  Hades,  institute  a  general  judgment, 
break  up  Satan's  kingdom,  drive  all  the  wicked 
out  of  the  earth  and  shut  them  down  in  Hades, 
and  then  establish  that  Kingdom  of  God  for 
which  so  many  of  the  faithful  had  been  longing 
for  ages.  Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  language  in 
which  this  general  view  is  set  forth  or  taken  for 
granted.    Thus  — 

"For  as  through  the  one  man's  disobedience  the  many 
were  made  sinners,  even  so  through  the  obedience  of  the  one 
shall  the  many  be  made  righteous"  (Romans  v.  19). 

In  this  familiar  passage  the  view  taken  is  that 
in  submitting  to  physical  death  Jesus  had  some- 
how satisfied  the  justice  of  God  on  behalf  of  the 
whole  human  race,  physical  death  being  the  divinely 
ordained  sentence  upon  sin.  All  that  men  have 
now  to  do  is  to  claim  the  benefits  of  this  Atonement. 
It  should  be  clearly  noted  that  it  is  not  the  future 
hell  of  present  day  popular  religion  from  which 
this  Atonement  is  supposed  to  save  us,  but  from 
death  itself,  as  well  as  all  the  existing  pain  and  an- 
guish of  the  world.  The  great  thing  to  be  done 
was  to  stop  people  from  suffering  and  dying,  and 
to  cleanse  the  world  from  all  the  things  that  made 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 01 

men  wretched.  The  initial  step  was  taken  in  this 
direction  when  the  Son  of  God  underwent  the  pains 
of  death  Himself,  and  then  rose  triumphant  over  it. 
The  spell  of  evil  was  now  broken,  and  a  great  many 
other  desirable  things  would  shortly  follow.  Be- 
fore very  long  this  resurrection  would  become 
general  in  virtue  of  this  victory  of  Christ  over  the 
devil,  and  those  who  were  worthy  would  forthwith 
be  endowed  with  immortality.  This  is  the  plain 
and  simple  meaning  of  such  language  as  the  fol- 
lowing — 

"Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead  dieth  no  more;  death 
hath  no  more  dominion  over  Him"  (Romans  vi.  9). 

"Now  hath  Christ  been  raised  from  the  dead,  the  first 
fruits  of  them  that  are  asleep.  For  since  by  man  came  death, 
by  man  came  also  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  For  as  in 
Adam  all  die,  so  also  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive.  But 
each  in  his  own  order;  Christ  the  first  fruits,  then  they  that 
are  Christ's,  at  His  coming.  Then  cometh  the  end,  when 
He  shall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  God  even  the  Father; 
when  he  shall  have  abolished  all  rule  and  all  authority  and 
power.  For  He  must  reign  till  He  hath  put  all  His  enemies 
under  His  feet.  The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  abolished  is 
death"  (i  Cor.  xv.  20-26). 

This  passage  means  exactly  what  it  says,  and 
is  about  as  good  an  example  as  could  be  found  of 
the  early  admixture  of  Graeco- Jewish  superstitions 
with  the  simple  ethics  of  Jesus.  Another  which 
ought  not  to  be  passed  over  in  this  connection  is 
the  well-known  verse  (Romans  viii.  ii)  — 


I02       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

"If  the  Spirit  of  Him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead 
dwelleth  in  you,  He  that  raised  up  Christ  Jesus  from  the  dead 
shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies  through  His  Spirit  that 
dwelleth  in  you." 

Here  the  assertion  is  that  the  followers  of  Jesus 
are  to  be  made  immortal,  not  by  dying  and  going 
to  some  distant  heaven,  but  by  having  their  physical 
bodies  transformed  in  such  a  way  that  they  will 
never  again  be  subject  to  death.  When  the  divine 
revolution  takes  place,  and  the  kingdom  comes, 
the  new  order  will  not  be  complete  if  death  is  still 
able  to  cause  trouble  and  heartbreak,  so  there  will 
be  no  more  death.  This  is  going  a  long  way  beyond 
anything  that  any  modern  social  reformer  has  ever 
dreamed  of.  The  same  statement  is  even  more 
plainly  made  in  the  following  passage,  with  the 
additional  assertion  that  some  of  those  addressed 
would  live  to  see  it  — 

"We  shall  not  all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed,  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the  last  trump :  for  the 
trumpet  shall  sound,  and  the  dead  shall  be  raised  incorruptible, 
and  we  shall  be  changed.  For  this  corruptible  must  put  on 
incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on  immortality.  But 
when  this  corruptible  shall  have  put  on  incorruption,  and  this 
mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  then  shall  come  to 
pass  the  saying  that  is  written,  Death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory"  (i  Cor.  xv.  51-54). 

The  nearness  of  the  second  coming. — It  is  evident, 
too,  that  the  general  expectation  among  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  apostolic  age  was  that  it  could  not  be 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  I03 

long  at  the  farthest  before  this  dramatic  second  com- 
ing of  Christ,  with  all  its  supernatural  accompani- 
ments, took  place.  Here  is  the  programme  according 
to  one  of  the  earlier  of  these  epistolary  writings  — 

"For  the  Lord  Himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a 
shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of 
God.  And  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first:  then  we  that 
are  alive,  that  are  left,  shall  together  with  them  be  caught  up 
in  the  clouds  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air,  and  so  shall  we  ever 
be  with  the  Lord"  (i  Thess.  iv.  16-18). 

How  astonishingly  remote  is  this  naive  expecta- 
tion from  all  that  we  are  accustomed  to  at  the  present 
time.  It  could  hardly  be  seriously  maintained,  for 
instance,  that  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  con- 
templates being  whirled  up  into  the  firmament  in 
this  drastic  fashion.  Imagination  staggers  at  the 
thought,  and  yet  these  words  were  probably  written 
by  one  whose  authority  in  the  primitive  Church  was 
at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury in  one  which  fondly  believes  itself  to  be  the 
custodian  of  the  same  faith,  —  ''the  faith  once  for 
all  delivered  to  the  saints,"  as,  following  New  Tes- 
tament language,  it  is  often  called.  It  ought  to 
be  obvious  to  men  of  common  sense  that,  whatever 
be  the  merits  or  demerits  of  modern  orthodox 
Christianity,  it  is  not  the  faith  once  for  all  delivered 
to  the  saints.  All  through  the  New  Testament 
this  belief  in  the  near  advent  of  the  great  change 
which  was  to  put  everything  right  is  plainly  ex- 
pressed.   Thus  — 


I04       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

"But  this  I  say,  brethren,  the  time  is  short.  It  remaineth 
that  both  they  that  have  wives  be  as  though  they  had  none; 
and  they  that  weep  as  though  they  wept  not;  and  they  that 
rejoice  as  though  they  rejoiced  not;  and  they  that  buy  as 
though  they  possessed  not;  and  they  that  use  this  world 
as  not  abusing  it;  for  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away'* 
(i  Cor.  vii.  29-31). 

In  giving  advice  of  this  kind  the  writer  is  evi- 
dently firmly  possessed  by  the  conviction  that  the 
great  change  is  so  near  that  it  would  be  better  for 
serious-minded  people  not  to  get  married  and  not 
to  make  any  far-reaching  plans  for  the  future. 
One  wonders  what  would  happen  if  this  kind  of 
advice  were  being  given  from  Christian  pulpits 
to-day.  The  expectation  out  of  which  it  arose 
must  have  been  very  strong,  so  strong  as  to  be  char- 
acteristic of  the  Christianity  of  the  time,  but,  prac- 
tically speaking,  it  no  longer  exists.  The  same 
expectation  is  alluded  to  in  the  gospels  themselves, 
and  the  words  are  there  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus — 

"When  they  persecute  you  in  this  city,  flee  into  the  next: 
for  verily  I  say  unto  you  ye  shall  not  have  gone  through  the 
cities  of  Israel  until  the  Son  of  man  be  come"  (Matt.  x.  23). 

"Let  your  loins  be  girded  about,  and  your  lamps  burning; 
and  be  ye  yourselves  like  unto  men  looking  for  their  lord.  .  .  . 
Be  ye  also  ready ;  for  in  an  hour  that  ye  think  not  the  Son  of 
man  cometh"  (Luke  xii.  35,  40). 

This  expectation,  too,  forms  the  whole  back- 
ground of  the  strange  book  called  Revelation, 
the  general  theme  of  which  is  the  absolute  over- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I05 

throw  of  the  world-powers  and  the  triumphant 
inauguration  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  After  a 
figurative  description  of  the  various  catastrophes 
which  are  to  precede  this  consummation,  the  writer 
tells,  in  language  of  unsurpassed  beauty  and  pathos, 
of  the  incoming  of  heaven  to  earth  — 

"And  I  saw  the  holy  city,  New  Jerusalem,  coming  down 
out  of  heaven  from  God,  made  ready  as  a  bride  adorned  for 
her  husband.  And  I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  the  throne 
saying,  Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  He 
shall  dwell  with  them,  and  they  shall  be  His  peoples,  and  God 
Himself  shall  be  with  them  and  be  their  God;  and  He  shall 
wipe  away  every  tear  from  their  eyes;  and  death  shall  be  no 
more;  neither  shall  there  be  mourning,  nor  crying,  nor  pain 
any  more:  the  first  things  are  passed  away.  And  He  that 
sitteth  on  the  throne  said,  Behold,  I  make  all  things  new" 
(Rev.  xxi.  2-5). 

Then  follows  an  elaborate  and  well-sustained 
description  of  the  character  and  proportions  of  this 
new  city  of  God  on  earth,  which  most  people  seem 
to  imagine  to  be  an  anticipation  of  the  glories  of 
some  other  world  in  the  regions  beyond  death.  It 
should  be  clearly  recognized,  however,  that  the  ideal 
which  gives  such  power  to  the  pen  of  this  unknown 
writer  is  precisely  that  of  Rousseau  and  Mazzini 
with,  perhaps,  a  more  intense  personal  piety  and 
mystical  temperament  associated  therewith.  His 
final  outlook  is  cosmopoHtan,  too,  though  it  starts 
from  the  Judaistic  standpoint  — 

"And  the  nations  shall  walk  amidst  the  light  thereof: 
and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring  their  glory  into  it"  (v.  24). 


Io6       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

He  concludes  his  picture  of  the  future  with  the 
words  — 

"The  Lord,  the  God  of  the  spirits  of  the  prophets,  sent 
His  messenger  to  show  unto  His  servants  the  things  which 
must  shortly  come  to  psiss.  And  behold,  I  come  quickly" 
(xxii.  6,  7). 

Before  the  theology,  the  outlines  of  which  we 
have  been  tracing,  had  obtained  such  a  strong 
footing  in  primitive  Christianity  considerable  changes 
must  have  taken  place.  The  GaUlean  peasants 
who  first  preached  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  were 
no  theologians:  all  they  had  to  proclaim  was  that 
Jesus  was  coming  again  soon,  as  all  the  Jewish  world 
expected  the  national  dehverer  to  do,  and  that  those 
who  prepared  for  His  advent  by  amending  their 
ways  and  taking  the  side  of  God  against  Satan  would 
be  admitted  to  the  new  kingdom  and  endowed  with 
immortal  Hfe.  They  preached  this  good  news  with 
all  their  might,  and  cheerfully  went  to  prison  and 
to  martyrdom  as  the  price  of  their  fidelity  to  it. 
How  did  it  come  about  that  they  were  able  to  do 
this  and  were  so  confident  about  the  result?  I 
can  only  conclude  that  they  must  have  had  some 
overwhelming  evidence  of  the  continued  existence 
of  Jesus,  and  that  out  of  this  evidence  grew  the 
theology  of  the  resurrection,  afterwards  so  elabo- 
rately developed  in  Pauline  thought.  We  have  seen 
that  their  whole  general  conception  was  such  that 
they  could  imagine  no  resurrection  which  was  not 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  I07 

physical.  They  believed  that  when  their  Master 
came  back  from  the  under- world,  the  land  of 
shadows,  He  must  have  re-entered  the  very  body 
in  which  they  had  last  seen  Him,  and  taken  that 
body  with  Him  into  the  material  heaven  above 
the  clouds.  They  believed  He  would  come  in  the 
same  manner  as  they  had  seen  Him  go.  They 
had  no  conception  whatever  of  a  heaven  beyond 
the  tomb  for  ordinary  mortals;  their  evangel 
necessitated  the  belief  that  a  concomitant  of  the 
new  order  which  was  about  to  be  established 
would  be  the  endowment  of  all  the  followers  of 
Jesus  with  a  glorious  immortality  on  the  earth 
plane  —  a  kind  of  perpetual  youth.  This  was 
Christianity  as  it  was  first  preached  in  Galilee 
and  Jerusalem. 

The  change  from  nationalism  to  universalism.  — 
But  there  was  one  thing  in  which  the  first  Chris- 
tian preachers  must  have  differed  from  the  writers 
of  the  epistles.  Nationalism  had  to  be  given  up, 
and,  as  I  have  already  said,  it  was  not  without  a 
struggle  that  the  first  Christians  were  eventually 
persuaded  to  do  this.  It  follows  from  what  has 
been  said  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  all  their 
hopes  were  bound  up  with  the  restoration  of  the 
Jewish  nationality  and  the  removal  of  the  foreign 
yoke.  They  had  no  other  conception  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  To  them  all  other  nations  were 
"  the  kingdoms  of  this  world,"  and  their  master 
was  Satan.    This  is  the  notion  alluded  to  in  the 


I08       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

story  of  the  temptation  to  which  Jesus  was  sub- 
jected when  Satan  tried  to  seduce  Him  from  His 
vocation  by  promising  to  give  Him  "  all  the  king- 
doms of  this  world  and  the  glory  of  them  "  if  He 
would  fall  down  and  worship  their  over-lord;  the 
scene  fits  in  with  the  prevailing  dualism  to  which 
we  have  already  referred  at  some  length.  But 
before  long  the  enthusiasm  of  the  new  faith 
burst  its  boundaries.  According  to  the  account 
given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  it  was  Peter 
who  first  carried  the  evangel  to  people  of  non- 
Jewish  race,  but  the  story  lacks  verisimilitude, 
and  was  probably  inserted  at  a  much  later  date  in 
order  to  give  Peter  his  proper  traditional  primacy 
in  the  evangelisation  of  the  world.  There  is 
more  foundation  for  the  belief  that  the  daring 
step  was  taken  by  the  Paul  who  wrote  Galatians, 
and  it  was  not  taken  without  considerable  heart- 
burning. Like  the  founders  of  the  first  French 
Republic,  Paul  wanted  not  merely  an  ideal  nation, 
but  an  ideal  world,  and  in  His  new-found  enthu- 
siasm he  determined  to  carry  the  good  news  to 
the  confines  of  civilisation.  This  was  by  no 
means  an  impossible  thing  to  do,  for  civilisation 
was  practically  comprised  within  the  limits  of 
the  Roman  empire,  which  lay  around  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean,  and  whose  rulers  were 
therefore  fittingly  called  the  '*  lords  of  the 
world."  When  Paul  obtained  the  somewhat 
reluctant    consent    of    the    Christian    society    at 


THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD  109 

Jerusalem  to  proclaim  Jesus  throughout  the 
Roman  empire,  the  permission  may  have  been 
granted  on  the  understanding  that  he  should  go 
first  to  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion,  whose  syna- 
gogues were  to  be  found  in  every  great  city. 
But  wherever  he  went  he  was  dogged  by  emis- 
saries of  the  narrower  national  party  at  home, 
who  maintained  that  before  a  foreigner  could  be 
admitted  to  the  benefits  of  the  coming  Kingdom 
of  God  he  must  be  naturalised  as  a  Jew,  that  is, 
he  must  be  circumcised  and  keep  the  law  of 
Moses.  Paul  knew  perfectly  well  that  Greeks 
and  Romans  would  never  do  anything  of  the 
sort  in  any  large  numbers,  so  he  vehemently 
resisted  the  efiForts  of  his  opponents  to  divide 
the  newly  formed  societies  on  such  an  issue. 
How  fiercely  the  controversy  raged  we  can  only 
infer  from  the  distant  echoes  which  reach  us 
through  the  pages  of  the  fragmentary  letters 
written  at  the  time  — 

"But  when  Peter  came  to  Antioch  I  resisted  him  to  the 
face,  because  he  stood  condemned.  For  before  that  certain 
came  from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the  Gentiles;  but  when 
they  came,  he  drew  back  and  separated  himself,  fearing  them 
that  were  of  the  circumcision"  (Gal.  ii.  11,  12). 

"With  freedom  did  Christ  set  us  free;  stand  fast,  there- 
fore, and  be  not  entangled  again  in  a  yoke  of  bondage"  (v.  i). 

"There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  can  be  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  and  female,  for  ye  are  all 
one  in  Christ  Jesus"  (iii.  28). 

PauPs    strenuous    contention    was    that    Jewish 


no       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

nationalism  was  too  narrow  a  basis  for  the  new 
order,  and  that  its  benefits  ought  to  be  extended 
to  all  who  were  included  in  the  world-order 
which  had  absorbed  Judaea  itself.  This  was  a 
most  important  departure,  the  effects  of  which 
can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  One  can  only  specu- 
late what  modern  civilisation  might  have  been, 
but  for  the  determination  of  this  intrepid  little 
Jew.  Paul  builded  better  than  he  knew,  for  if  he 
had  not  succeeded  in  carrying  his  point  Christian- 
ity would  have  perished  in  its  cradle,  as  one  of 
the  already  numerous  Jewish  cults  whose  hori- 
zon was  bounded  by  the  interests  of  their  own 
people.  A  hint  of  the  same  controversy  is  given 
in  Rev.  iii.  9  — 

"Behold,  I  will  make  them  of  the  synagogue  of  Satan, 
which  say  they  are  Jews,  and  are  not,  but  do  lie:  behold,  I 
will  make  them  to  come  and  worship  before  Thy  feet,  and  to 
know  that  I  have  loved  Thee." 

Evidently  feeling  ran  high  in  this  time  of  new 
beginnings,  but,  happily  for  the  world,  the 
universalists  gained  the  day  as  against  the 
nationalists,  and  ere  long  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  the  new  movement  was  transferred  from 
Jerusalem  to  Rome,  and  the  Gentile  converts 
outstripped  the  Jews  both  in  numbers  and 
enthusiasm. 

The  early  Christian  h3rmns.  —  It  is  this  great 
transference   which  accounts  for  the  adoption  of 


THE    KINGDOM   OF    GOD  III 

Jewish  Messianic  expectation  by  the  new  com- 
munities everywhere.  Thus  among  the  earliest 
Christian  hymns  we  find  such  compilations  as  the 
Magnificat,  the  song  of  Zacharias,  and  the  song 
of  Simeon.  The  use  of  these  in  modern  worship 
has  greatly  weakened  their  force,  for  their  original 
significance  has  been  conventionalised  away.  It 
is  rather  ridiculous  to  hear  a  well-dressed  con- 
gregation singing  — 

"He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats,  and 
exalted  them  of  low  degree; 

"He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things,  and  the  rich 
He  hath  sent  empty  away"  (Luke  i.  52,  53), 

when  we  remember  that  the  words  were 
originally  sung  by  groups  of  enthusiasts  hiding 
from  their  persecutors  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome, 
looking  for  a  revolution  in  the  affairs  of  this 
world,  and  meaning  literally  every  word  they 
said. 

Similarly,  it  is  somewhat  impressive  to 
remember  that  the  hymn  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  father  of  John  the  Baptist,  but  far  more  prob- 
ably compiled  from  the  language  of  Old  Testa- 
ment scripture  by  Jewish  Christians,  was  a  sort 
of  Marseillaise  with  a  religious  flavour  — 

"Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  for  He  hath  visited 
and  redeemed  His  people,  and  hath  raised  up  an  horn  of 
salvation  for  us  in  the  house  of  His  servant  David  (as  He 
spake  by  the  mouth  of  His  holy  prophets  which  have  been 


112       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

since  the  world  began),  that  we  should  be  saved  from  our 
enemies,  and  from  the  hand  of  all  that  hate  us;  to  perform 
the  mercy  promised  to  our  fathers"  (Luke  i.  68-72). 

The  song  of  Simeon  is  an  adaptation  of  the 
same  sentiments  to  the  new  conditions  under 
which  foreigners  became  admitted  to  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  Christian  societies  — 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation,  which  Thou  hast 
prepared  before  the  face  of  all  peoples,  a  light  for  revelation 
to  the  Gentiles,  and  the  glory  of  Thy  people  Israel"  (Luke 
ii.  30-32). 

The  same  set  of  changing  conditions  is  doubt- 
less alluded  to  in  the  brief  account  of  the  post- 
resurrection  appearances  of  Jesus  given  in  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  — 

*'To  whom  (the  Apostles)  He  also  showed  Himself  alive 
after  His  passion  by  many  proofs,  appearing  unto  them  by  the 
space  of  forty  days,  and  speaking  the  things  concerning  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  .  .  .  They  therefore,  when  they  were  come 
together,  asked  Him,  saying.  Lord,  dost  Thou  at  this  time 
restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel?  And  He  said  unto  them, 
It  is  not  for  you  to  know  times  or  seasons  which  the  Father 
hath  set  within  His  own  authority"  (Acts  i.  3,  5). 

This  passage  evidently  belongs  to  the  period 
when  the  new  religion  had  become  fairly 
wide-spread,  and  the  keenness  of  expectation  con- 
cerning the  speedy  coming  of  the  kingdom  had 
worn  off.  It  is  a  remarkable  tribute  to  the  moral 
enthusiasm  generated  by  the  new  faith  that  it 
was  able  to  survive  the  indefinite  postponement 
of  the  hopes  excited  both  by  Jesus  Himself  and 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  II3 

those  who  preached  His  resurrection  and  second 
advent.  The  promised  kingdom  did  not  come, 
although  gradually  but  surely  the  night  settled 
down  upon  the  Roman  empire  and  the  ancient 
civilisation  of  which  it  had  been  the  custodian 
and  embodiment. 

Communism  of  the  Jerusalem  Church.  —  One 
more  point  remains  to  be  noticed  before  we  quit 
this  phase  of  our  subject  —  the  communism  of  the 
Apostolic  Church.  A  great  deal  has  been  said 
about  this  experiment  from  time  to  time,  but  per- 
haps too  much  has  been  made  of  it.  It  is  quite 
improper  to  appeal  to  it  as  a  model  for  modern 
imitation.    We  are  told  that  — 

"All  that  believed  were  together,  and  had  all  things  com- 
mon ;  and  they  sold  their  possessions  and  goods,  and  parted 
them  to  all,  according  as  any  man  had  need"  (Acts  ii.  44,  45). 

Evidently  under  the  tension  of  the  beautiful 
and  unselfish  enthusiasm  which  had  been  gene- 
rated by  the  name  of  Jesus  and  the  hope  of  the 
good  time  coming,  these  simple  folk  were  prepared 
to  do  anything.  But  there  was  no  economic  theory 
behind  their  action.  They  neither  approved  nor 
condemned  private  property;  what  moved  them 
was  simply  and  solely  their  new  sense  of  comrade- 
ship and  their  joyful  anticipation  of  the  coming 
time  of  peace  and  plenty.  They  thought  there  was 
no  need  to  make  plans;  all  they  had  to  do  was  to 
hold  together  and  witness  their  Master  to  the  world 


114        CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

until  He  came  amongst  them  once  more  at  the  head 
of  the  hosts  of  heaven  to  deliver  them  from  all 
their  disabilities.  Then,  too,  it  should  not  be  over- 
looked that  these  people  were  very  poor,  for,  like 
most  great  movements,  Christianity  began  among 
the  lower  orders.  These  Jerusalem  Christians  seem 
indeed  to  have  been  in  straits,  for  occasional 
references  are  made  to  the  collections  which 
were  taken  on  their  behalf  among  the  Gentile 
Christians  of  Asia  Minor.  (Perhaps  this  facili- 
tated somewhat  the  task  of  the  great  man  who 
first  insisted  on  carrying  the  gospel  to  the  Gen- 
tiles. It  is,  at  any  rate,  significant  that  it  is  PauPs 
name  which  is  mentioned  in  connection  with 
these  contributions.)  There  is  no  evidence  that 
the  communistic  experiment  was  tried  in  the 
Gentile  churches.  On  the  contrary,  there  are  not 
a  few  references  to  incidents  which  indicate  that 
the  Christian  leaders  abstained  from  active  inter- 
ference with  existing  institutions,  even  that  of 
chattel  slavery.  The  Epistle  to  Philemon  is  per- 
haps the  best  example  of  this  general  attitude. 
Here  the  runaway  slave  Onesimus  is  restored  to 
his  Christian  master,  with  the  injunction  that  he 
is  to  be  treated  "  no  longer  as  a  bond  servant, 
but  more  than  a  bond  servant,  a  brother  beloved  " 
(v.  i6). 

Christianity  and  the  Empire.  —  On  the  still  more 
urgent  question  of  the  relation  of  the  Christians 
to  existing  political  authorities  the  policy  adopted 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  II5 

appears  to  have  been  that  of  non-resistance,  and 
there  is  no  respect  in  which  the  new  faith  was 
more  sharply  differentiated  from  ordinary  Judaism. 
Jewish  nationaHst  expectations  culminated  in  the 
hopeless  rising  against  the  Roman  power  which 
was  followed  by  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and 
the  final  removal  of  all  the  external  signs  of  cor- 
porate national  life.  This  disastrous  event  served 
to  put  an  end  to  Jewish  Messianic  hopes  for  the 
time  being,  if  not  for  ever,  but  it  made  no  difference 
to  the  Christians,  for  their  evangel  was  not  now 
bound  up  with  the  hope  of  a  re-establishment  of 
Jewish  nationality,  but  with  the  regeneration  of 
human  society  as  a  whole.  But  we  must  not  be 
deceived  into  imagining  that  the  transplantation 
of  the  new  religion  from  Jewish  to  Gentile  soil 
meant  an  immediate  abandonment  of  its  political 
and  social  implications;  the  Roman  Emperors 
knew  better.  From  our  present-day  point  of  view 
it  may  seem  remarkable  that  a  wise  and  enlightened 
ruler,  like  Marcus  Aurelius,  for  example,  whose 
own  ethical  standard  bore  such  a  resemblance  to 
that  of  Jesus  should  have  rigorously  persecuted 
the  followers  of  Jesus.  But  there  is  nothing  re- 
markable about  it  when  we  realise  that  the  victory 
of  Christianity  implied  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  establishment  of  an  entirely  new 
order  with  Jesus  as  its  visible  head.  Rome  could 
afford  to  be  tolerant,  as  she  was  tolerant,  of  other 
faiths,  but  not  of  this.    The  rapid  spread  of  Chris- 


Il6       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

tianity  meant  the  spread  of  opinions  which,  not 
without  reason,  were  deemed  equivalent  to  the 
subversion  of  constituted  authority.  The  lower 
orders  began  to  look  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Chris- 
tian ideal  as  their  one  hope  of  deliverance  from 
their  masters.  Rome  under  the  Antonines,  as 
Gibbon  has  shown,  had  reached  the  highest  point 
of  external  splendour  and  prosperity,  but  it  was  a 
greatness  founded  on  a  vast  underlying  discontent. 
Dr.  Dill,  in  what  is  now  the  standard  work  on  this 
same  period,  shows  that  with  the  increase  of  mili- 
tary rule  the  sufferings  of  the  toilers  become  pro- 
portionately greater.  Christianity  came  as  a 
message  of  emancipation,  and  while  its  nascent 
enthusiasm  lasted  there  was  every  prospect  that 
Roman  imperialism  would  have  to  set  its  house  in 
order.  There  is  nothing  more  dangerous  to  privi- 
lege and  tyranny  than  a  social  gospel  allied  to 
religious  fervour.  Had  the  world  been  really 
ready  for  the  Christian  ideal  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  the  fall  of  imperialism  would  have  been  syn- 
chronous with  the  rise  of  a  world  State  in  which 
the  dream  of  present-day  Socialism  would  have 
received  fulfilment.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  Chris- 
tianity was  conquered  by  becoming  respectable. 
It  did  indeed  mount  the  throne  of  the  Caesars, 
but  only  to  replace  secular  by  ecclesiastical 
tyranny.  The  present  Church  of  Rome  is  but 
the  shadow  of  the  old  Empire;  it  is  the  Empire 
perpetuated  under  ecclesiastical  forms.    It  is  one 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  II7 

of  the  great  contradictions  of  history  that  the 
religion  which  started  as  the  promise  of  universal 
brotherhood  should  have  come  to  be  the  chief 
bulwark  of  authority  and  the  foe  of  liberty.  The 
transition  was  perfectly  simple.  All  that  had  to 
be  done  was  to  transfer  the  expectation  of  com- 
munal happiness  from  this  world  to  the  next,  and 
the  thing  was  done.  Henceforth  the  advice  to 
the  poor  and  oppressed  would  be  that  they 
should  remain  passive  under  existing  injustice, 
in  order  that  they  might  receive  compensation 
in  heaven.  A  greater  travesty  of  the  original 
meaning  and  purpose  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  could 
not  well  be  imagined. 

Summary.  —  To  sum  up.  We  have  now  seen 
that  the  first  followers  of  Jesus  were  Jewish  national- 
ists, whose  moral  passion  and  social  aspirations  were 
more  intense  than  those  of  their  countrymen.  They 
had  somehow  become  convinced  that  their  Master 
was  still  alive  and  would  presently  return  to  earth 
to  complete  the  work  He  had  begun,  and  they 
believed  it  to  be  their  duty  to  publish  this  good 
news  to  the  descendants  of  Abraham.  But  this 
simple  ideal  soon  began  to  be  mixed  up  with  a 
theology  derived  from  contemporary  Graeco- 
Jewish  notions  about  the  origin  of  evil,  the  first 
and  second  Adam,  and  such  like.  The  root  con- 
ception in  this  theology,  especially  as  it  became 
associated  with  the  name  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  was 
that  the  work  of  the  Messiah  when  He  returned 


Il8       CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

to  earth  would  be  to  break  the  spell  which  Satan 
had  cast  over  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men,  that 
is,  He  was  to  "  abolish  death  and  bring  life  and 
immortality  to  light."  After  the  kingdom  of  Satan 
had  been  destroyed  and  the  Kingdom  of  God 
established,  none  of  the  subjects  of  Jesus  would 
ever  again  have  to  suffer  or  die.  And  just  as 
Jesus  was  supposed  to  have  risen  from  the  dead, 
so  would  all  the  righteous  who  had  died  before 
His  second  coming  rise  again  in  order  to  take 
their  place  in  the  ideal  Commonwealth.  Before 
long  this  expectation  was  extended  to  Gentiles 
as  well  as  Jews,  principally  through  the  exertions 
of  the  Apostle  Paul.  Henceforth  the  anticipated 
Commonwealth  was  thought  of  as  world  wide 
and  knowing  no  distinctions  of  race  or  nationality. 
Even  the  dominance  of  one  sex  over  the  other 
appears  to  have  been  thought  of  as  having  to  go, 
for  Paul  says  there  was  to  be  no  question  of 
male  and  female  in  the, new  order.  But  perhaps 
all  that  was  meant  was  that  there  was  to  be  no  more 
marrying  or  bearing  of  children  —  a  supposition 
which  certainly  alters  the  complexion  of  the  state- 
ment. No  economic  theories  were  indulged  in; 
all  was  religious  enthusiasm.  It  was  revolution 
by  miracle,  not  by  blood  and  barricades;  although, 
according  to  the  book  of  Revelation,  there  must 
have  been  some  vivid  picturing  of  the  dramatic 
nature  of  the  final  struggle,  the  Armageddon,  in 
which   the   forces   of   hell   would    be   routed    and 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  II9 

those  of  heaven  prevail.  Hence,  while  the 
Christians  were  persecuted  for  identifying  exist- 
ing political  powers  with  the  kingdom  of  Satan 
and  prophesying  their  overthrow,  they  did  not 
attempt  to  hasten  this  consummation  by  violence. 
All  they  did  v/as  to  call  for  recruits  to  the  side  of 
Jesus  and  await  His  arrival. 

It  thus  becomes  evident  that  the  hopes  of 
the  Christians  were  not  at  all  dependent  upon 
the  theology  which  gradually  developed  in  con- 
nection with  them,  and  which  occupies  so  large 
a  place  in  New  Testament  writings.  The  all- 
important  thing  in  primitive  Christian  preaching 
was  its  intense  belief  in  the  coming  of  an  ideal 
social  order  in  which  men  would  no  longer  feel 
any  desire  to  strive  against  or  injure  one  another. 
The  superstitions  about  the  dramatic  second 
coming,  the  general  resurrection,  and  the  catas- 
trophic nature  of  the  changes  which  would  then 
take  place  need  not  deceive  us  in  the  least.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  these  over-beliefs  have  become 
substituted  in  the  course  of  time  for  the  original 
Christianity;  the  non-essential  has  crushed  out 
the  essential;  other- worldism  has  gradually 
replaced  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
with  which  Jesus  began  His  mission  to  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD 

III.  In  Present-day  Christianity 

So  far  v/e  have,  I  hope,  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  fairly  accurate  general  view  of  the  situation 
out  of  which  Christianity  arose,  together  with 
the  ideal  implied  in  the  new  evangel.  We  have 
now  to  see  how  far  Christianity  as  we  know  it 
to-day  corresponds  to  this  picture.  In  making  our 
inquiry  we  have  perforce  to  overleap  the  inter- 
vening centuries,  and  ignore  vast  and  interest- 
ing developments  which  have  had  immense 
value  and  significance  in  the  shaping  of  the  com- 
plex civilisation  with  which  we  of  the  western 
world  are  familiar.  But  there  is  no  help  for  it; 
we  have  to  narrow  our  field  of  observation  if  we 
would  lay  bare  the  main  issue  which  we  propose 
to  examine. 

Individualist  salvation.  — The  first  thing,  then, 
which  strikes  an  impartial  observer  in  reference 
to  the  question  thus  raised  is  the  fact  that  modern 
Christianity  has  shed  some  of  the  illusions  of  apos- 
tolic teaching  and  substituted  others.  The  next 
thing  is  that  what  was  primary  in  Christian  preach- 

120 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  121 

ing  has  now  become  secondary;  we  are  preaching 
the  winning  of  the  world  for  Christ,  as  we  call  it, 
but  we  place  in  the  foreground  the  offer  of  an 
individual  salvation  which  is  to  take  effect  in  some 
other  world  than  this,  to  reach  which  the  Christian 
must  first  pass  through  the  change  called  death. 
Now,  this  is  so  absolutely  different  from  what  the 
first  followers  of  Jesus  believed  and  taught  that 
it  is  only  by  a  long  stretch  of  the  imagination  that 
present-day  orthodox  Christianity  can  fairly  be 
regarded  as  Christianity  at  all.  It  would  be  easy 
to  trace  one  by  one  how  these  changes  in  emphasis 
came  about,  but  we  must  leave  that  phase  of  the 
subject  alone  and  concentrate  upon  the  task  of 
showing  what  they  are. 

To  begin  with,  then,  we  note  that  modern  Chris- 
tianity preaches  an  individualist  salvation  obtain- 
able by  believing  something.  Not  only  is  this  a 
drastic  departure  from  the  standpoint  of  Jesus,  but 
it  implies  a  point  of  view  to  which  He  was  strongly 
opposed  in  the  orthodoxy  of  His  race  and  time. 
The  issue  declared  in  the  sharp  antagonism  between 
Him  and  the  Pharisees  is  one  with  which  we  are 
being  confronted  to-day,  although  we  may  not  see 
it  so  clearly  in  our  own  case.  It  is  truly  astonishing 
to  reflect  that  in  these  days  the  very  thing  against 
which  Jesus  strove  so  earnestly  should  have  become 
entrenched  in  His  own  Church  and  be  speaking  in 
His  name.  It  is  somewhat  startling  to  see  how 
closely   the    conditions   against   which    He    vainly 


122       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

strove  correspond  with  those  which  prevail  in  Chris- 
tendom at  this  moment.  The  reason  why  Jesus  con- 
demned the  ideals  of  the  Pharisees  was  not  that 
they  knew  themselves  to  be  wrong  and  were  de- 
termined to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  pubUc, 
but  because  their  whole  idea  of  righteousness  was 
based  upon  a  false  conception.  It  is  always  easier 
to  fight  an  out  and  out  scoundrel,  who  knows  he 
is  a  scoundrel  and  means  to  keep  on  being  one,  than 
to  resist  and  overcome  a  man  who  claims  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  highest  for  something  that  is  unreal  and 
harmful.  In  the  former  case  the  issue  is  clear  and 
unmistakable;  in  the  latter  it  is  not.  This  was  just 
how  Jesus  was  placed  with  regard  to  the  Pharisees. 
These  claimed  to  be  the  custodians  of  true  religion, 
and  they  looked  down  upon  all  who  were  less  earnest 
and  thorough  than  themselves  in  their  adherence  to 
the  traditional  forms  of  rehgion.  They  were  the 
Nonconformists  of  the  hour  in  contrast  to  the  State 
Churchmen,  the  aristocratic  priestly  order.  They 
were  opposed  to  the  Sadducees  —  and  not  without 
reason  —  because  they  held  that  these  were  worldly- 
minded.  They  glorified  the  past  of  the  party  to 
which  they  themselves  belonged,  and  were  always 
insisting  that  this  party  had  been  the  one  hope  of 
Israel  ever  since  the  great  struggle  for  the  main- 
tenance of  national  reUgion  against  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  and  the  Syro-Greek  dominion  in  the 
second  century  B.C.  At  that  time  the  Hellenising 
party  among  the  priests  had  been  quite  willing  to 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 23 

accommodate  the  national  faith  to  Greek  forms; 
but  the  predecessors  of  the  Pharisees  prevented 
them  from  doing  so,  and  held  all  the  more  tena- 
ciously to  the  purely  Jewish  tradition.  The  Phar- 
isees of  Jesus'  day  prided  themselves  on  this,  and 
came  to  identify  religion  and  righteousness  with  the 
rigid  observance  of  the  so-called  law  of  Moses. 
They  held  that  to  be  properly  reUgious  a  man  must 
obey  the  law,  precept  by  precept,  and  if  he  succeeded 
in  doing  this  he  was  righteous.  Tlie  original  reason  for 
the  existence  of  such  precepts  did  not  trouble  them. 
They  did  not  ask  themselves  why  it  should  be  ac- 
counted righteous  to  perform  certain  ablutions  and 
to  fast  at  certain  periods.  They  just  did  these  things 
because  they  were  written  in  the  law,  and  the  whole 
fabric  of  observance  was  a  matter  of  external  au- 
thority. The  vicious  root  of  the  system  was  its  in- 
dividualism, the  assumption  that  a  man  could  be- 
come righteous  by  doing  certain  things  apart  from 
all  question  of  their  bearing  upon  the  well-being 
of  his  fellow-men.  This  was  where  Jesus  came  into 
conflict  with  them.  He  denied  that  there  could  be 
such  a  thing  as  an  individuahst  righteousness,  a 
righteousness  entirely  between  man  and  God,  and 
not  between  man  and  man.  The  Pharisees  main- 
tained that  a  man's  merit  in  the  sight  of  God  had 
no  direct  relation  to  his  deahngs  with  his  fellows, 
although,  of  course,  it  might  be  counted  desirable 
to  behave  properly  to  other  people.  Jesus  ^iewed 
this  principle  with  detestation,  and  pointed  out  that 


124       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

the  law  itself,  in  its  original  significance,  implied 
justice  and  kindness  as  between  man  and  man. 
**  Go  ye  and  learn  what  that  meaneth,  I  desire  mercy 
and  not  sacrifice "  (Matt.  ix.  13).  The  rigidly 
pious  folk  could  not  understand  this;  it  sounded 
like  blasphemy.  They  had  been  so  accustomed 
to  think  of  the  law  as  inviolably  sacred  that  they 
were  horror-stricken  at  any  attempt  to  tamper  with 
its  provisions  or  inquire  into  its  worth  to  humanity. 
In  fact,  they  talked  about  the  law  precisely  as  ortho- 
dox Christians  talk  about  the  Bible  now.  To  them 
it  was  God's  Word,  and  therefore  to  be  obeyed 
without  cavil  and  without  inquiring  into  the  reason 
for  obedience.  Jesus  contended  that  the  whole 
Pharisaic  system  was  thus  radically  wrong  because 
it  divorced  righteousness  from  right  doing  as  between 
man  and  man.  He  held  that  the  true  service  of 
God  was  the  service  of  man,  and  that  the  kind  of 
righteousness  which  left  communal  obligation  out 
of  count  was  no  righteousness  at  all. 

It  might  seem  at  first  sight  as  though  the  issue 
thus  declared  so  plainly  between  Jesus  and  the 
official  representatives  of  respectable  religion  in  His 
day  were  non-existent  now,  but  if  we  think  so  we 
shall  be  greatly  mistaken.  Precisely  the  same 
issue  does  exist,  and  parties  are  ranging  themselves 
in  much  the  same  way  with  much  the  same  result. 
And  just  as,  for  the  moment,  Jesus  was  defeated, 
or  seemed  to  be  defeated,  by  the  forces  of  tradi- 
tionalism,  so   is   spiritual    religion    being    choked 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 25 

to-day  by  ecclesiasticism  in  its  various  forms.  What 
is  there  in  common  between  the  simple  ethics  of 
Jesus  and  the  complex  confessions  of  faith  which 
now  form  the  basis  of  Christian  fellowship  ?  Their 
very  fundamental  assumption  is  wrong,  namely,  the 
assumption  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  indi- 
vidualist salvation,  and  that  it  is  vitally  necessary 
to  believe  certain  propositions  in  order  to  participate 
in  the  benefits  of  the  gospel  message.  This,  as  we 
see,  was  the  very  thing  against  which  Jesus  pro- 
tested so  earnestly  in  face  of  the  orthodoxy  of  His 
time,  although  the  form  it  takes  is  somewhat  dif- 
ferent now  from  what  it  was  then.  The  curse  of 
modern  religion,  and  especially  of  ordinary  Protes- 
tantism, is  this  assumption  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  an  individualist  salvation,  whose  principal  bene- 
fits accrue  in  the  next  world,  like  an  insurance  policy 
with  tontine  profits.  There  cannot  be  such  a  thing 
as  an  individuaUst  salvation  any  more  than  an  in- 
dividualist righteousness.  No  man  is  saved  until  he 
is  willing  to  be  lost  in  the  service  of  his  kind,  and 
there  is  no  salvation  worth  talking  about  which  does 
not  imply  becoming  a  saviour.  Believing  unprov- 
able propositions  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  religion 
of  Jesus.  The  only  things  upon  which  He  insisted 
were  those  which  were  self-evident  to  the  man  whose 
judgment  was  not  already  warped  by  associating 
religion  with  some  elaborate  system  based  on  ex- 
ternal authority.  The  conventional  religion  of  His 
day  commanded  the  doing  of  formal  deeds;    the 


126       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

conventional  religion  of  our  day  commands  the 
acceptance  of  formal  creeds;  and  at  the  basis  of 
both  is  this  vicious  individuaUsm  which  asserts  a 
righteousness  in  the  sight  of  God  apart  from  all 
question  of  one's  value  to  the  world.  There  could 
be  nothing  more  dangerous  or  a  greater  hindrance 
to  true  reUgion  than  this.  It  was  the  thing  above 
all  others  which  Jesus  loathed,  and  for  opposing 
which  He  was  murdered  in  the  end.  Like  the 
Pharisees,  many  of  us  are  taking  for  granted  to-day 
that  our  duty  to  our  fellow-men  is  a  sort  of  adden- 
dum to  the  Gospel  rather  than  the  very  pith  and 
marrow  of  it.  When  we  talk  about  being  saved, 
what  do  we  mean  ?  We  usually  mean  that  we  have 
made  sure  of  our  individualist  heaven.  When  we 
talk  about  trusting  in  the  redeeming  work  of  Christ, 
what  do  we  mean?  We  mean  —  or  are  supposed 
to  mean  —  that  we  are  accepted  of  God  on  quite 
other  grounds  than  that  of  our  conduct  to  our 
fellows.  When  we  talk  about  the  imputed  right- 
eousness of  the  Redeemer,  what  do  we  mean  ?  We 
mean  that  we  are  legally  clear  of  transgression,  no 
matter  what  our  deserts  may  have  been.  In  all 
this  there  is  no  indication  that  our  only  real  indi- 
vidual merit  consists  in  our  value  to  the  common 
hfe  and  our  contribution  to  the  common  good.  And 
yet  this  was  the  very  thing  upon  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  Jesus  insisted  most  strenuously.  None  of 
these  theological  fictions  had  any  place  in  His 
teaching,  and  the  assumption  upon  which  they  are 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I27 

all  based  He  regarded  with  the  utmost  abhorrence. 
All  our  body  of  dogma  is  so  much  useless  lumber, 
and  even  worse,  for  it  re-erects  the  false  stand- 
ard of  Pharisaic  religion.  It  is  not  Christianity; 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  Christianity;  and  to 
insist  upon  it  is  to  miss  the  very  meaning  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Misleading  doctrine  of  sin.  —  Closely  akin  to  this 
offer  of  an  individuahst  salvation  is  the  false  em- 
phasis on  sin.  Once  again  we  may  illustrate  the 
difference  between  the  point  of  view  of  Jesus  and 
that  of  modern  orthodox  Christianity  by  a  reference 
to  His  controversy  with  the  Pharisees.  Jesus  said 
very  little  about  sin;  the  Pharisees  scarcely  talked 
of  anything  else.  The  difference  in  emphasis  is  un- 
mistakable. So  far  as  we  can  gather  from  the 
Gospel  accounts,  Jesus  never  exhibited  any  per- 
sonal sense  of  sin,  and  this  was  just  what  made  the 
Pharisees  distrust  Him ;  orthodox  Christianity  would 
distrust  Him  to-day  for  the  same  reason.  The  sin- 
lessness  of  Jesus  has  now  become  a  dogma,  but  it 
would  never  have  occurred  to  Jesus  to  raise  the 
question  as  to  whether  He  were  sinless  or  not.  The 
artificial  way  of  looking  at  things  implied  in  such  a 
question  was  utterly  foreign  to  His  nature.  His 
thoughts  did  not  appear  to  dwell  to  any  great 
extent  on  the  subject  of  sin  at  all,  and  the  strictly 
religious  people  of  His  day  expected  from  Him  an 
amount  of  contrition  which  He  did  not  show.  The 
absence  of  this  demeanour  in  a  religious  teacher  not 


128       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

only  puzzled  them,  but  filled  them  with  horror.  The 
nearest  approach  He  ever  made  to  what  looked  like 
a  consciousness  of  imperfection  was  in  the  ques- 
tion: "Why  callest  thou  me  good?  None  is  good 
save  one,  that  is  God."  He  never  said  anything 
which  indicated  a  feeling  of  personal  unworthiness, 
and  yet  His  mood  was  as  far  as  possible  removed 
from  that  of  spiritual  pride.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  very  self-consciousness  of  the  Pharisaic  type  of 
piety  made  spiritual  pride  inevitable.  Modern 
organised  Christianity  has  fallen  into  precisely  the 
same  error  for  precisely  the  same  reason,  namely,  its 
assumption  that  sin  is  a  matter  wholly  between  the 
soul  and  God,  a  corruption  of  human  nature  which 
pollutes  us  in  the  sight  of  the  all-Father,  no  matter 
what  our  relations  to  our  fellow-men  may  be.  This 
is  false  and  wrong;  and  it  is  all  the  more  mischievous 
because  it  is  difficult  to  assail  it  without  seeming  to 
lay  too  little  stress  upon  the  reality  of  wrong-doing. 
And  yet,  unless  we  do  make  clear  the  falsity  of  this 
view,  we  shall  never  secure  that  individual  sensi- 
tiveness to  social  obligation  which  is  the  crying  need 
of  the  hour.  The  fact  is  that,  to  a  large  extent,  it  is 
not  Jesus,  but  the  Pharisee  that  has  won  after  all  in 
the  history  of  official  Christianity.  It  is  the  Pharisee 
who  has  drafted  most  of  our  creeds,  our  liturgies, 
our  public  confessions  of  guilt  and  wickedness.  The 
note  of  Jesus  is  hardly  ever  sounded  in  the  ordinary 
.  public  worship  of  the  churches  of  to-day,  and  until 
we  get  it  back  the  really  essential  thing  in  the  work 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 29 

of  Jesus  will  remain  undone.  Nearly  all  the  lan- 
guage in  which  we  have  been  trained  "  humbly  to 
acknowledge  and  confess  our  sins  before  God  "  is 
unreal  and  untrue,  and  it  would  be  better  never  to 
use  it.  It  represents  a  morbid  and  unhealthy  de- 
velopment in  the  experience  of  mankind.  The 
assumption  behind  it  is  that  somehow  we  are  by 
nature  foul  and  corrupt,  do  what  we  will,  and  that 
in  the  sight  of  God  we  must  necessarily  stand  con- 
demned like  prisoners  at  a  judgment  bar.  So  terri- 
ble is  our  state  that  no  language  can  adequately 
describe  it.  We  have  no  merits,  no  righteousness, 
no  worth  of  our  own;  were  it  not  for  the  pardoning 
mercy  and  redeeming  love  of  God  we  should  be 
blotted  out  of  His  book  of  remembrance,  as  we 
richly  deserve  to  be,  and  as  we  would  have  been 
but  for  Jesus.  The  whole  meaning  and  purpose  of 
the  coming  of  Jesus  were  to  save  us  from  the  eternal 
loss  which  is  the  natural  consequence  of  this  awful 
thing  called  sin.  Everything  that  pietism  could  do 
has  been  done  to  magnify  the  grace  and  condescen- 
sion of  God  in  providing  such  a  means  of  salvation 
for  us,  and  our  religious  vocabulary  has  been  ran- 
sacked to  find  epithets  sufficiently  severe  and  con- 
temptuous wherewith  to  describe  human  nature. 
Christian  congregations  will  stand  and  sing  with 
the  utmost  complacency  such  effusions  as  the  follow- 
ing, which  can  easily  be  paralleled  from  any  author- 
ised hymn  book  used  in  the  public  devotion  of  our 
churches :  — 


130       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

"Oppressed  with  sin  and  woe, 
A  burdened  heart  I  bear; 
Opposed  by  many  a  mighty  foe, 
But  I  will  not  despair, 

"With  this  polluted  heart 
I  dare  to  come  to  Thee, — 
Holy  and  mighty  as  Thou  art, — 
For  Thou  wilt  pardon  me. 


"And  wilt  Thou  pardon.  Lord, 
A  sinner  such  as  I? 
Although  Thy  book  his  crimes  record 
Of  such  a  crimson  dye? 

"So  deep  are  they  engraved, — 
So  terrible  their  fear, 
The  righteous  scarcely  shall  be  saved, 
And  where  shall  I  appear?" 

As  a  rule  the  respectable  penitents  who  publicly 
describe  themselves  in  this  fashion  are  able  to  do 
so  without  the  least  perturbation.  This  represents 
what  they  have  been  trained  to  think  about  them- 
selves in  relation  to  God,  and  what  preachers  are 
still  being  trained  in  theological  colleges  to  tell 
future  congregations  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Some 
time  ago  when  addressing  a  meeting  of  ministers  I 
described  sin  as  selfishness.  A  subsequent  speaker 
took  exception  to  this  definition  as  inadequate,  and 
in  a  tone  of  deep  feeUng  which  marked  his  sincerity 
at  the  moment,  but  which  a  cynical  outsider  would 
have  called  cant,  said  to  the  assembly:  "  Is  it  noth- 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I3I 

ing  more  than  that  to  us,  brethren  ?  "    He  was  met 
by  an  answering  groan  of  assent. 

Evidently  the  vast  majority  of  those  present 
agreed  with  the  speaker's  acknowledgment  of  his 
own  innate  depravity  as  well  as  theirs.  (He  is, 
in  reaUty,  a  most  estimable  man.)  And  yet  at 
the  bottom  of  their  hearts  every  one  of  them 
must  have  known  that  he  never  had  been  guilty 
of  anything  worse  than  selfishness,  and  that  his 
real  culpability,  his  real  turpitude,  was  to  be 
measured  by  the  amount  of  harm  he  had  done 
to  his  fellow-men,  and  not  by  some  purely  fan- 
ciful foulness  before  God.  Every  one  of  those 
ministers  must  know,  if  he  will  only  face  the 
facts,  that  in  practice  in  ordinary  everyday  life 
we  measure  men's  worth  by  the  selfishness  or 
generosity  of  their  dealings  with  one  another 
and  by  nothing  else.  There  is  no  real  and  demon- 
strable sense  in  which  our  standing  before  God 
can  be  measured  in  any  other  way.  The  evil  of 
this  unreal  kind  of  talk  is  that  it  conduces  to 
self-complacency,  although  at  first  sight  it  seems 
to  do  the  very  opposite.  It  is  individualistic.  It 
withdraws  attention  from  the  thing  that  really 
matters,  namely,  a  rigid  and  searching  exami- 
nation of  our  conduct  in  relation  to  human 
society  as  a  whole.  This  artificial  language 
about  our  supposed  foulness  before  God  is  quite 
consistent  with  a  great  deal  of  hardness  and 
arrogance   and   want   of   conscientiousness   in   the 


132       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

treatment  of  one's  neighbour.  Champions  of 
orthodoxy  are  not  unknown  who  are  so  terribly 
anxious  that  human  sinfuhiess  in  the  sight  of 
God  should  be  insisted  on  that  they  have  quite 
forgotten  the  need  for  manifesting  a  spirit  of 
comradeship  or  fair  play  in  their  ordinary  rela- 
tions with  their  fellows.  Many  a  commercial 
magnate  is  able  to  curse  himself  in  general  terms 
on  Sundays  and  in  church  for  his  abstract  un- 
worthiness  in  the  presence  of  his  Maker,  but  is 
not  too  particular  as  to  the  ways  in  which  he 
obtains  his  dividends  on  the  remaining  six  days 
of  the  week,  or  the  lives  he  crushes  in  the 
process.  The  connection  between  doctrine  and 
practice  is  not  altogether  negligible  in  this 
respect.  Psychologically  speaking,  it  is  quite 
understandable  that,  if  a  man  can  only  persuade 
himself  that  he  has  done  the  correct  thing  about 
getting  right  with  God  on  account  of  his  theo- 
retical sins,  there  is  no  need  to  be  in  a  hurry 
about  squaring  the  account  with  man,  for  of 
course  man  is  of  much  less  importance  than 
God!  We  have  seen  that  there  were  people  who 
honestly  beUeved  this  in  Jesus'  day,  and  that 
they  also  believed  themselves  to  be  the  serious- 
minded  people  of  the  age.  They  strongly  dis- 
approved of  Jesus,  and  regarded  Him  as  a  blas- 
phemer without  any  proper  sense  of  sin.  The 
reply  of  Jesus  was:  "Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and 
Pharisees,   hypocrites ! "    No   greater   irony   could 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I33 

well  be  imagined  than  that  the  modern  repre- 
sentatives of  this  same  religious  type  should 
have  appropriated  Jesus,  and  be  engaged  in 
belauding  and  defending  Him. 

Meaninglessness  of  abstract  confessions  of  sin.  — 
For  the  truth  is  that  the  ordinary  church-goer 
does  not  really  mean  what  he  says  in  church 
about  sin.  He  thinks  he  does  at  the  time,  but  the 
moment  he  turns  back  to  his  ordinary  relations 
with  his  fellows  he  insists  to  the  full  upon  the  recog- 
nition of  what  he  considers  to  be  his  true  value  to 
society.  He  has  two  standards,  one  for  the  altar 
and  one  for  the  market-place.  He  tells  God  how 
desperately  wicked  he  is,  but  if  any  one  else  says 
the  same  thing  about  him  he  wants  to  know  pre- 
cisely what  he  means,  and  if  the  accuser  is  foolish 
enough  to  particularise,  and  cannot  justify  his 
charge,  probably  the  Christian  will  bring  an  action 
against  him  for  defamation  of  character.  Then, 
too,  we  all  know  quite  well  that  we  cannot,  as  a 
rule,  distinguish  in  business  between  the  Christian 
who  has  had  his  theoretical  sins  forgiven  for  Jesus' 
sake,  and  the  man  of  the  world  who,  presumably, 
has  not.  In  fact,  it  is  conceivable  that  the  latter 
may  be  the  kinder  and  better  friend  of  the  two. 
If  so,  we  say  so,  and,  in  all  our  dealings  with  the 
particular  circle  in  which  we  move,  we  learn  to 
estimate  and  speak  of  men  by  what  we  are  able  to 
see  of  their  uprightness  and  kindness  of  heart.  The 
plain  and  simple  truth  is  that  no  man  knows  what 


134       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

he  really  means  when  he  confesses  his  foulness  in 
the  sight  of  God.  No  inteUigible  answer  could 
ever  be  given  to  the  question,  What  do  you  mean 
by  God's  hoUness  and  man's  sinfulness?  other 
than  to  say,  God's  hoHness  is  love,  and  nothing 
but  love;  human  sinfulness  is  human  selfishness, 
and  nothing  else.  It  is  absolutely  nonsensical 
to  talk  either  about  a  righteousness  or  a  blame- 
worthiness in  the  sight  of  God  which  has  a 
purely  individual  significance.  Righteousness 
implies  right  relations  with  human  society,  just 
as  sin  impHes  adding  to  the  common  ill  or  taking 
from  the  common  good.  No  man  can  be  either 
good  or  bad  in  and  by  himself  alone;  his  good- 
ness and  badness  have  all  the  time  a  social  back- 
ground. No  crime  of  his  can  do  any  harm  to 
God  otherwise  than  as  an  injury  inflicted  upon 
man.  It  is  because  official  Christianity  has  so 
largely  lost  sight  of  this  in  the  past  that  we  have 
had  saints  fleeing  to  the  desert  in  order  to  culti- 
vate their  souls  apart  from  the  world.  And  it 
is  because  official  Christianity  has  no  clear  grasp 
of  it  in  the  present  that  it  subordinates  the  service 
of  the  common  weal  to  the  supposed  necessity  of 
saving  one's  own  soul  from  a  purely  imaginary 
danger.  There  can  be  no  saving  of  the  soul 
otherwise  than  by  the  laying  down  of  life  in 
a  noble  self-forgetfulness  to  take  it  again  in  a 
greater  sense  of  soHdarity  and  a  brightening  of 
the   common   lot   of  humankind.      It   is   no   use 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I35 

saying  that  the  churches  have  not  fallen  into  the 
error  thus  indicated.  They  have.  Their  attitude 
to  the  question  of  sin  compels  it. 

It  would  cut  at  the  root  of  all  the  misunder- 
standing which  exists  between  the  churches  and 
the  masses  if  the  former  could  only  revise  their 
attitude  on  this  one  question,  and  in  speaking  of 
sin  begin  with  man's  duty  to  man  instead  of 
man's  duty  to  God.  This  is  not  to  deny  man's 
duty  to  God,  but  to  get  at  it  in  the  right  way.  We 
have  nothing  to  repent  of  except  the  evil  we 
have  actually  wrought  in  the  world  by  our  selfish 
and  short-sighted  conduct.  There  is  no  mys- 
terious process  whereby  we  can  be  whitewashed 
in  the  sight  of  God  if  we  are  still  going  on  doing 
cruel  things,  and  showing  a  grasping,  unscrupu- 
lous spirit  in  our  relations  with  one  another. 
The  one  great  thing  that  we  need  to  get  rid  of  in 
present-day  Christianity  is  this  false  notion  that 
sin  against  God  is  something  different  from  sin 
against  man,  or  that  we  can  be  individually  jus- 
tified before  God,  and  made  safe  at  some  future 
judgment,  without  taking  into  account  what  is 
owing  from  us  to  a  needy  world.  Instead  of 
paying  missioners  to  save  "  perishing  souls "  by 
inducing  them  to  believe  something  or  other, 
our  duty  is  to  begin  with  perishing  bodies,  and 
rescue  them  from  the  cruel  maw  of  a  system 
under  which  the  very  money  with  which  we  pay 
the    missioner    has    been    squeezed    out    of    their 


136       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

life-blood.  Slowly  but  surely,  the  sluggish  con- 
science of  the  churches  is  being  awakened  to 
the  unreality  of  the  ordinary  assumptions  about 
sin.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  "  Biglow  Papers  '^ 
which  exactly  expresses  the  traditional  view  of 
this  subject,  and,  by  implication,  exposes  its 
hoUowness  — 

"I'm  willing  a  man  should  go  tolerable  strong 

Agin  wrong  in  the  abstract ;   for  that  kind  o'  wrong 

Is  oilers  unpopular,  and  never  gets  pitied, 

Because  it's  a  wrong  no  one  ever  committed ; 

But  you  mustn't  be  hard  on  particular  sins, 

'Cause  then  you  get  kickin'  some  people's  own  shins." 

Some  one  recently  sent  me  a  cutting  from  a 
newspaper  containing  an  article  by  a  clergyman's 
son,  entitled  "  Sin  and  Selfishness."  I  regret  that 
I  cannot  give  the  name  of  the  newspaper,  but 
the  following  extract  from  the  article  in  question 
is  well  worth  attention :  — 

"It  is  strange  that  a  word  associated  with  religion  should 
so  fail  in  its  effect  that  when  we  want  to  appeal  to  a  man,  we 
have  to  appeal  to  some  quality  not  specially  associated  with 
religion.  Call  a  man  wicked  and  you  do  not  rouse  him; 
you  may  even  flatter  him.  But  call  him  a  coward,  or  say  he  is 
not  a  gentleman,  and  you  have  touched  his  conscience.  So 
with  sin  and  selfishness.  It  is  no  slur  to  call  a  person  sinful; 
he  will  only  J*f)ly  that  we  are  all  sinful,  but  that  the  grace  of 
God  will  save  us,  and  so  forth.  But  call  him  selfish  and  you 
have  touched  a  sore  point  and  impugned  his  honour.  Honour 
does  not  seem  to  be  an  ecclesiastical  conception;  it  is  a 
chivalric  conception;  wherein  it  seems  as  though  the  former 
had  indeed  failed  of  its  true  mission." 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 37 

But  this  same  thing  was  said  ages  before  by  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  Himself  — 

"If  therefore  thou  art  offering  thy  gift  at  the  altar,  and  there 
rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath  aught  against  thee,  leave 
there  thy  gift  before  the  altar,  and  go  thy  way,  first  be  recon- 
ciled to  thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift." 

And  even  Jesus  was  quoting  from  the  great 
preachers  of  ancient  Israel  in  language  with 
which  His  hearers  were  already  familiar. 

Vicarious  atonement.  —  A  third  feature  in  modern 
Christianity,  impUed  in  both  of  the  foregoing,  is  the 
accepted  theory  of  the  way  in  which  sin  is  supposed 
to  be  atoned  for  and  salvation  made  possible. 
It  is  true  that  modern  preachers  speak  with  halting 
tongue  on  this  subject,  because  they  have  come  to 
feel  the  difficulty  of  presenting  a  reasonable  and 
coherent  explanation  of  their  theory.  But  under- 
neath every  partial  explanation  offered  in  an  ortho- 
dox pulpit,  Cathohc  or  Protestant,  is  the  outrageous 
assumption  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  by  His  cruel 
death  on  Calvary,  somehow  purchased  Divine 
forgiveness  of  sins  for  the  whole  human  family, 
a  forgiveness,  however,  which  must  be  individually 
claimed.  This  monstrous  assertion  —  for  such  it 
is  —  vitiates  the  whole  of  our  rehgious  life,  and 
has  done  so  for  ages.  The  truth  about  the  matter 
would  be  obvious  enough  but  for  the  theological 
atmosphere  which  surrounds  it.  This  mischievous 
fiction  has  acted  in  countless  instances  as  a  kind  of 


138       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

anaesthetic  to  the  moral  instincts,  and  served  to 
divert  attention  from  the  plain  and  obvious  fact 
that  such  forgiveness  never  needed  to  be  purchased, 
and  that  humanity  is  being  crucified  every  day  for 
the  sins  of  organised  society  and  the  cruelties  of 
individuals.  By  the  invention  of  this  doctrine,  of 
which  no  one  has  ever  yet  succeeded  in  giving  a 
sensible  explanation,  ecclesiasticism  has  transformed 
a  wicked  murder  into  a  sort  of  bargain  between 
God  and  man,  the  situation  it  was  designed  to 
meet  being  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  figment 
of  the  religious  imagination.  The  supposed 
wretched  condition  of  the  sinner  in  the  presence 
of  his  sovereign  Judge  has  no  existence  save  in 
the  fanciful  soteriology  of  dogmatic  Christianity; 
it  is  a  needless  misery  inflicted  upon  the  human 
mind  which  has  already  miseries  enough.  The 
time  wasted  in  the  discussion  of  this  doctrine 
has  represented  a  vast  amount  of  energy  with- 
drawn from  the  practical  question  of  how  to 
lessen  the  sum  of  human  disabilities.  It  is  as 
though  we  had  been  watching  the  semblance  of 
a  shipwreck  in  the  clouds,  oblivious  of  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  real  shipwreck  on  the  rocks  below. 
Other  worldism.  —  A  fourth  difference  between 
present-day  Christianity  and  the  primitive  faith  out 
of  which  it  arose  is  the  transference  of  interest,  in 
theory  at  least,  from  this  world  to  the  next.  There 
could  be  no  more  conspicuous  contrast  between  the 
Gospel  preached  by  Jesus  and  His  followers  and 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  1 39 

the  Gospel  as  now  preached  in  His  name  than  this. 
It  is  one  mark  of  the  limitations  of  the  first  Chris- 
tians that  they  believed  so  intensely  in  the  sudden 
transformation  of  human  society;  it  is  one  mark  of 
the  limitations  of  their  present-day  successors  that 
they  beHeve  in  it  so  Httle.  What  we  hear  about  now 
is  the  number  who  have  availed  themselves  of  the 
merits  of  Jesus  and  are  on  their  way  to  heaven  — 
the  general  Protestant  view;  or  the  number  who 
have  joined  His  mystic  body,  the  Church,  for  the 
same  purpose — the  Catholic  view.  That  this  other- 
worldism  had  no  place  in  primitive  Christianity 
never  occurs  to  the  ordinary  church-goer  to-day. 
That  the  primitive  Christian  view  was  a  mistaken 
one  goes  without  saying,  but  it  was  far  worthier 
and  far  nearer  to  the  truth  than  the  one  which  in 
the  course  of  history  has  been  substituted  for  it. 

The  Church  and  the  kingdom.  —  A  fifth  difference 
is  that  which  relates  to  the  meaning  and  function 
of  the  Church  itself.  In  the  hght  of  the  historical 
criticism  of  the  Christian  sources  what  a  pitiful 
waste  of  a  good  man's  opportunities  is  the  Apologia 
of  John  Henry  Newman,  for  example !  Here  was 
a  man  who  started  his  life  work  with  the  assumption 
that  his  first  duty  was  to  save  his  soul  from  a  future 
hell,  and  that  to  do  so  he  must  find  and  enter  the 
true  Church,  the  sphere  of  covenanted  grace,  the 
ark  of  salvation,  founded  by  Jesus  Christ  for  the 
rescue  of  a  remnant  from  impending  destruction. 
In  the  light  of  the  same  set  of  facts  how  meaning- 


I40       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

less,  too,  is  ordinary  Protestant  Church  membership ! 
For  what  originally  was  this  Church  of  Christ  but 
the  company  or  society  of  those  who  were  looking 
for  their  Master's  second  coming  to  put  the  world 
right,  and  who  thought  it  their  duty  to  keep  on 
telling  their  neighbours  that  this  consummation  was 
near  at  hand?  The  centre  of  gravity  has  shifted 
enormously  since  the  tiny  groups  in  which  primitive 
Christianity  organised  its  growing  life  became 
welded  into  one  compact  whole  with  powerful 
officers  and  elaborate  administrative  machinery. 
The  very  word  "Church"  has  undergone  a  trans- 
formation. Originally  it  meant  no  more  than  the 
company  of  those  who  were  *'  called  out,"  as  the 
name  signifies,  to  witness  for  their  Lord  in  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  which  were  shortly  to  be  replaced 
by  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Where  now  is  this  ex- 
pectation of  the  Kingdom  of  God?  It  has  been 
attenuated  into  insignificance  in  comparison  with  the 
importance  of  the  Church  which  was  originally 
only  its  herald.  The  Church  and  the  Kingdom 
have  even  been  persistently  confounded,  until  to-day 
many  a  good  orthodox  Christian  thinks  they  mean 
the  same  thing  and  sings  devoutly  — 

"I  love  Thy  kingdom,  Lord, 
The  house  of  Thine  abode, 
The  Church  our  blest  Redeemer  saved 
With  His  own  precious  blood." 

At  another  time,  and  from  another  point  of  view, 
he  supposes  the  Kingdom  to  be  identical  with  a 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  I4I 

heaven  beyond  the  tomb.  Occasionally  he  uses 
phraseology  which  implies  that  the  Kingdom  is 
inward  and  spiritual,  the  reign  of  God  in  the  heart 
of  man,  and  will  never  find  outward  expression. 
But  an  examination  of  the  facts  of  the  case  would 
demonstrate  beyond  dispute  that  none  of  these 
represent  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  with  which 
Christianity  started  its  career.  That  idea  was  a 
firm  belief  in  the  establishment  of  a  perfect  Com- 
monwealth or  universal  brotherhood  wholly  of 
this  world. 

New  Testament  origins  of  modem  dogma.  —  It 
must  be  admitted  that  these  misleading  views  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  Christian  evangel  find  some  sup- 
port in  the  New  Testament,  especially  in  the  epistles. 
They  have  been  greatly  modified  in  transition,  but, 
in  principle  at  least,  most  of  them  are  to  be  found 
there.  But  this  need  not  disturb  us,  nor  force  us 
upon  the  dilemma  of  either  abandoning  Christianity 
altogether  or  accepting  it  in  its  present  irrational 
and  unsatisfying  dogmatic  form.  There  is  no  avoid- 
ing the  issue.  Ecclesiastical  Christianity  does  not 
relate  itself  to  the  pressing  needs  of  the  age,  and  it 
is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence.  Must  we  give  it  up, 
or  has  it  a  message  which  we  can  recover?  As- 
suredly it  has,  essentially  the  same  message  as  that 
with  which  it  began  its  history,  the  glad  tidings  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  We  must  examine  at  closer 
quarters  presently  what  these  glad  tidings  imply  for 
the  modern  mind.     But  before  we  can  succeed  in 


142        CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

getting  a  clear  idea  as  to  what  the  essential  message 
of  Christianity  really  is  we  must  be  frankly  prepared 
to  admit  and  reject  the  illusions  both  of  the  New 
Testament  Christians  and  their  successors  of  to-day. 
No  modern  preacher  really  presents  the  Christian 
evangel  in  its  hteral  New  Testament  setting;  he 
cannot  do  so.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  death 
came  into  the  world  as  the  result  of  sin,  and  yet  in 
the  Pauline  writings  the  assertion  is  emphatically 
made  that  it  did.  It  is  impossible  to  beheve  that 
the  world  as  we  now  see  it  represents  the  ruin  of 
what  it  once  was,  and  yet  this  is  the  very  starting- 
point  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  as  to  what  salvation 
was  for.  The  difference  between  ancient  and 
modern  Christian  thought  on  these  points  is  not 
unimportant;  it  is  fundamental,  and  we  are  guilty 
of  a  want  of  intellectual  honesty  if  we  pretend  to 
ignore  it.  Then  again,  it  is  impossible  to  hold,  with 
Jesus  and  His  apostles,  that  the  world  as  it  now  is 
constitutes  the  kingdom  of  Satan,  and  that  all  the 
evil  in  it  is  due  to  Satan  and  his  agents.  It  is  im- 
possible to  believe  that  its  deliverance  will  be  effected 
by  the  catastrophic  coming  of  a  new  order  called  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  preceded  by  a  colossal  break-up 
of  this  kingdom  of  Satan.  Nobody  beHeves  these 
things  —  least  of  all  those  guardians  of  probity  and 
right  thinking,  the  wealthy  proprietors  and  editors 
of  the  orthodox  religious  press,  who,  one  would 
think,  could  have  Httle  to  gain  by  such  a  quick- 
change  revolution  in  human  affairs  —  and  there  is 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD  143 

no  sensible  reason  for  going  on  assuming  that  we  do. 
We  know,  too,  that  the  New  Testament  Christians 
did  not  believe  in  dying  and  going  to  heaven,  as  we 
are  supposed  to  do  now,  and  they  certainly  did  be- 
lieve in  a  personal  immortality  on  the  earth  plane,  a 
thing  not  only  incredible  but  even  repugnant  to  the 
modern  mind.  How  in  the  face  of  these  facts  are 
Christian  preachers  going  to  keep  on  telling  their 
flocks  that  the  Christian  hope  of  immortaUty  finds 
its  justification  in  the  New  Testament  and  is  pre- 
cisely now  what  it  was  then?  The  emphasis  has 
entirely  changed  since  Christianity  was  first  preached 
in  the  Roman  empire,  and  the  fashion  in  which  it 
is  presented  now  is  utterly  different  from  that  in 
which  it  was  presented  then,  although  we  manage 
to  continue  using  the  very  words  of  those  primitive 
preachers  as  though  the  difference  were  non-existent. 
No  greater  proof  of  the  unreflective  character  of 
present-day  Christian  observance  could  be  found 
than  the  fact  that  tens  of  thousands  of  people  re- 
peat in  church  every  Sunday  words  which  imply  an 
outlook  on  life  which  no  ordinary  being  in  possession 
of  his  faculties  ever  dreams  of  taking  now-a-days, 
and  yet  they  do  it  all  apparently  without  the  least 
suspicion  that  the  performance  is  meaningless  and 
absurd.  We  cannot  have  much  hope  that  the 
churches  will  come  into  line  with  reality  in  modern 
life  until  the  illusions  of  early  Christian  preaching 
are  fully  recognised  and  admitted.  That  being  done 
without  hesitation  and  without  reserve,  we  shall  be 


OF  THZ'   ^'''y^ 


144       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

able  to  get  firm  hold  once  more  upon  v\fhat  has 
proved  to  be  strong  and  permanent  in  the  primitive 
Christian  evangel. 

The  necessity  for  freeing  Christianity  from  other- 
worldism.  —  But  even  before  this  is  done  we  shall 
have  to  surrender  our  own  illusions.  We  shall 
have  to  stop  contradicting  ourselves  in  our  solemn 
professions  of  faith,  and  we  shall  have  to  disown 
the  immoral  implications  of  some  of  our  favourite 
doctrines  —  doctrines  which  have  not  the  shadow 
of  foundation  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Himself. 
The  whole  fabric  of  our  other-worldism  will  have 
to  go.  We  may  not  doubt  the  continued  self- 
conscious  existence  of  the  soul  after  death,  but  we 
must  stop  talking  as  though  correctness  of  creed 
could  make  any  difference  to  its  eternal  destiny. 
We  must  have  done  with  the  falsehood  that  believ- 
ing something  or  other  about  the  execution  of  Jesus 
on  Calvary  will  act  as  the  plutocrat's  open  sesame 
to  glory,  or  that  the  lack  of  it  will  doom  some  poor 
ignorant  child  of  the  slums  to  hell.  If  we  know  that 
these  things  are  revolting  to  the  moral  sense,  why 
do  we  not  say  so?  Why  do  we  continue  to  hover 
around  them,  and  use  vague  phrases  which  assume 
a  belief  in  them  we  dare  not  attempt  to  justify? 
But  they  are  written  in  the  New  Testament !  I 
have  already  shown  that  it  is  not  so,  but  what 
would  it  matter  if  they  were?  If  orthodoxy  has 
already  set  aside  that  part  of  the  New  Testament 
in  which  it  cannot  believe  for  scientific  reasons,  why 


THE    KINGDOM   OF    GOD  I45 

does  it  hesitate  about  repudiating  another  part 
of  it  for  moral  reasons  ?  What  Paul  says  Jesus  died 
for  is  not  what  the  modem  preacher  says  He  died 
for;  the  difference  in  their  respective  views  on  the 
supposed  connection  between  sin  and  death  is  alone 
sufficient  to  explain  the  difference  in  emphasis. 
Let  us,  therefore,  frankly  admit  that  the  other- 
worldism  of  commonplace  Christianity  to-day  has 
no  place  whatever  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Grant  that  the  first  Christians  were  wrong 
in  supposing  that  the  dead  would  come  back  here; 
granted  they  were  limited  in  not  seeing  that  a 
progressive  personal  immortality  on  the  further  side 
of  death  is  better  than  any  return  to  this  mundane 
sphere,  however  triumphant  —  what  then  ?  It  still 
remains  true  that  they  were  stronger  and  clearer  in 
their  vision  than  we  are,  for  they  concentrated  all 
their  efforts  on  the  endeavour  to  awaken  men  to 
the  realisation  that  this  world  must  become  a  King- 
dom of  God.  That  they  thought  God  would  do  all 
the  work  is  not  to  their  discredit,  for  it  is  perfectly 
true.  All  noble  human  effort  is  the  forth-putting 
of  the  universal  life  in  higher  and  fuller  self-mani- 
festation. Cannot  we  catch  the  same  spirit?  Can- 
not we  cease  to  pay  attention  to  the  other  world, 
and  concentrate  upon  the  task  of  regenerating  this 
one?  Cannot  we  believe,  with  the  same  spiritual 
intensity  as  the  first  followers  of  Jesus,  that  this 
is  the  will  of  God  for  men,  and  that  the  Divine  voice 
is  ever  summoning  fresh  labourers  to  the  vineyard  ? 

L 


146       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Summary.  —  In  order  to  bring  the  argument 
to  a  focus  let  us  sum  up  once  more.  Modern 
orthodox  Christianity,  owing  to  the  increase  of 
human  knowledge,  has  outgrown  the  illusions  of 
primitive  Christianity,  but  has  adopted  others  in 
their  place.  It  preaches  an  individualist  salva- 
O  tion,  to^.lake  effect  after„death,  and  obtainable  by 
•  faith.  It  puts  an  entirely  false  emphasis  on  sin  by 
representing  it  as  a  matter  between  man  and  God 
to  be  atoned  for  by  the  merits  of  a  special  Redeemer. 
The  main  emphasis  in  its  evangel  is  laid  upon  the 
supposed  necessity  of  preparing  individuals  for  the 
\  world  to  come.  This  has  led  to  a  view  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  Church  entirely  different  from  that  with 
which  Christianity  began.  Some  of  these  modern 
doctrines  are  rooted  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
not  to  the  extent  that  is  commonly  supposed.  The 
whole  emphasis  is  different,  for  primitive  Chris- 
tianity confined  its  interest  to  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  this  world,  whereas 
modern  Christianity  has  weakened  its  efforts  in 
this  direction  by  its  other-worldism.  This  will 
have  to  be  given  up,  just  as  we  have  already  given 
up  the  whole  New  Testament  view  as  to  the  connec- 
tion between  sin  and  death,  the  structure  of  the 
universe,  physical  immortality,  and  the  like.  Then, 
and  not  till  then,  shall  we  be  able  to  recover  some- 
thing of  the  intensity  and  enthusiasm  which  accom- 
panied the  early  Christian  preaching  of  the  glad 
tidings  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF  CHRISTIANITY   AND 
SOCIALISM 

The  essential  principle  of  Christianity.  —  It  may 
appear  to  some,  even  among  Christian  Socialists, 
that  our  thorough-going  analysis  of  Christian 
origins  as  contrasted  with  modern  Christian  doc- 
trines leaves  very  little  to  which  the  name  Christian 
can  properly  apply.  But  this  is  an  entire  mistake, 
although  a  mistake  which  defenders  of  the  non- 
essential are  always  making  in  relation  to  Chris- 
tianity as  well  as  other  things.  The  object  of  our 
analysis  has  been  to  get  down  to  bed  rock  and  to 
show  what  was  the  real  objective  of  the  simple 
Galileans  who  first  went  forth  to  publish  the  message 
of  Jesus  to  the  world.  If  I  am  right  in  maintain- 
ing that  the  one  all-dominating  conception  in  their 
preaching  was  their  firm  belief  in  the  advent  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  surely  we  have  gained  something 
in  realising  that  everything  superimposed  upon 
this  has  tended  to  weaken  the  force  of  the  original 
evangel.  Surely,  too,  it  is  better  to  recognise  that 
the  naive  beliefs  of  these  early  Christians  in  the 
miraculous  nature  of  the  coming  of  the  new  order 
have  no  value  for  us  now,  and  that  the  wisest  thing 

147 


148      CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

we  can  do  is  to  accept  their  ideal  without  being 
limited  by  their  superstitions.  We  cannot  too 
strongly  insist  that  the  work  of  Christianity  is  to 
realise  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  and  nothing 
else.  Christianity  has  not,  and  never  has  had,  any 
other  Divine  commission.  Everything  added  to 
this  has  been  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help;  every- 
thing antagonistic  to  it  is  something  quite  different 
from  Christianity,  even  though  it  may  assume  the 
name.  The  Kingdom  of  God  as  Jesus  understood 
it  could  never  have  been  anything  less  than  a  uni- 
versal brotherhood,  a  social  order  in  which  every 
individual  unit  would  find  his  highest  happiness  in 
being  and  doing  the  utmost  for  the  whole.  If 
this  one  plain^nd  simple  principle  be  kept  clearly 
before  our  minds,  we  shall  not  heed  to  be  appre- 
hensive  that  with  the  disappearance  of  supernatural- 
ism  (in  the  ordinary  dogmatic  acceptation  of  that 
word)  Christianity  has  disappeared  likewise.  The 
exact  contrary  is  the  case.  If  we  never  lose  sight 
of  that  objective,  or  mix  it  up  with  anything  else, 
we  shall  be  able  to  differentiate  between  what  is 
truly  Christian  in  modern  developments  and  what 
is  not.  Anything  that  tends  towards  universal 
brotherhood  is  Christian;  anything  that  makes  for 
wider  life  for  all  instead  of  for  the  few  only  is  Chris- 
tian; anything  that  encourages  the  highest  self- 
expression  of  the  individual  in  the  service  of  the 
common  good  is  Christian;  anything  that  tends 
towards  the  destruction  of  selfishness  and  the  demo- 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 49 

lition  of  all  barriers  of  privilege  between  nation 
and  nation  or  man  and  man  is  Christian. 

Identical  with  Socialism.  —  Now  what  is  this 
but  Socialism?  Socialism  may  be  preached  occa- 
sionally by  avowed  agnostics  like  the  editor  of  the 
Clarion,  or  by  convinced  sacerdotalists  like  Father 
James  Adderley,  but  in  so  far  as  their  objective  is 
what  is  here  stated  they  are  both  Christian.  Their 
Socialism  is  the  practical  expression  of  what  always 
has  been  fundamental  to  Christianity,  and  the  thing 
they  are  aiming  at  is  precisely  what  all  the  primitive 
Christians  hoped  to  live  to  see. 

For  what  is  Socialism?  The  answer  to  that 
question  depends  upon  the  point  of  view.  One 
exponent  may  quite  honestly  pursue,  or  think  he 
pursues,  his  ideal  no  farther  than  the  purely  material 
plane.  If  so,  he  will  define  Socialism  as  the  com- 
munal ownership  of  the  means  of  production,  dis- 
tribution, and  exchange.  Supposing  him  to  be 
consistent  in  his  materialism  he  may  disavow  any 
objective  other  than  that  of  wringing  from  the 
niggardly  hand  of  Nature  as  many  creature  com- 
forts as  possible.  He  may  say  that  he  does  not 
care  three  straws  about  "  bainting  and  boetry," 
as  George  the  Second  is  reported  to  have  con- 
temptuously described  culture  in  his  characteristic 
German  accent.  He  may  even  tell  you  that  he 
does  not  love  his  neighbour  as  himself,  and  does 
not  intend  to  do  so,  but  that  he  has  found  it  to  be 
for  their  mutual  interest  to  stop  the  waste  which 


150       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

ensues  when  nations  and  individuals  are  competing 
with  each  other,  and  to  take  as  full  advantage  as 
possible  of  the  benefits  which  would  accrue  from  a 
combination  of  resources.  This  would  be  quite 
legitimate  ground  to  take,  and  our  friend,  as  far  as 
he  goes,  is  a  true  Socialist.  There  may  be  many 
such  SociaUsts  for  anything  I  know,  but  I  can 
honestly  say  I  have  never  met  one  of  them.  I  have 
met  several  who  have  started  their  exposition  of 
Socialism  by  a  disclaimer  of  any  higher  aim  than 
that  of  getting  the  most  out  of  life  in  the  way  of 
leisure,  comfort,  and  luxury;  but  as  they  have  pro- 
ceded,  and  warmed  to  their  subject,  I  have  usually 
found  them  vibrating  with  moral  passion  and 
appealing  to  the  highest  instincts  of  their  hearers 
on  the  ground  that  human  suffering  calls  for  pity 
and  remedy.  As  soon  as  I  hear  this  note  I  am  quite 
satisfied  to  let  our  miUtant  materiahst  go  on  preach- 
ing Christianity  in  his  own  way.  The  truth  is  that 
the  words  "  materialist  "  and  *'  materiaUsm  "  are 
very  loosely  used  in  our  common  speech.  Your 
true  materiahst  is  the  man  who  goes  on  consistently 
endeavouring  to  draw  to  himself  as  much  as  possible 
of  the  good  things  of  life  regardless  of  the  effect  of 
his  action  upon  the  common  weal;  and  the  name 
cannot  properly  be  applied  to  any  man  whose  heart 
is  aflame  with  pity  for  his  kind  and  a  desire  to  help 
and  heal,  even  though  he  may  be  unable  to  believe 
in  a  God  or  a  future  state.  MateriaUsm,  in  the 
strict  sense,  has  often  been  allied  to  orthodoxy. 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     151 

and  still  exercises  a  not  inconsiderable  influence 
in  the  councils  of  official  Christianity;  materiaHsm, 
theoretically  construed,  has  often  shown  itself  to 
possess  more  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  than  it  cared  to 
avow  —  in  fact,  materialism  in  this  sense  has 
usually  been  a  reaction  against  the  selfishness  and 
insincerity  of  dogmatic  religion.  But  let  that  pass. 
All  I  care  to  show  at  the  moment  is  that  the  aims  of 
SociaHsm,  even  from  the  material  point  of  view,  are 
distinctly  Christian.  They  are  Christian  because 
they  insist  on  the  desirability  of  getting  together 
instead  of  keeping  apart,  and  on  mutual  helpfulness 
instead  of  mutual  hindrance. 

Moral  ideal  of  Socialism.  —  But  from  the  moral 
point  of  view  the  case  is  clearer,  and  should  require 
no  defence.  From  this  standpoint  SociaUsm  may 
be  defined  thus:  "  All  for  each;  each  for  all."  It 
means  from  the  individual  the  utmost  for  the  whole; 
from  the  community  it  means  the  best  for  the 
weakest.  It  is  the  denial  of  the  ape  and  tiger 
qualities  and  an  appeal  to  the  higher  motives  of 
justice,  compassion,  and  public  spirit.  It  is  along 
this  line  that  SociaUsm  is  making  its  most  powerful 
appeal  to-day  and  gaining  the  largest  number  of 
adherents.  Will  any  one  seriously  afiirm  that 
this  is  something  other  than  Christian,  or,  indeed, 
that  it  was  not  the  very  starting-point  of  the  Chris- 
tian appeal?  ''It  is  not  the  will  of  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  Uttle  ones  should 
perish."     "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it, 


152       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

and  he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it."  "Love 
is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law."  This  it  is  which  is 
lending  to  Socialism  the  fervour  of  a  new  religion, 
and  yet  it  is  only  the  religion  of  Jesus  making  its 
appeal  to  modern  needs  with  its  original  end  in 
view.  If  it  were  concerned  only  with  the  meat 
that  perisheth  it  would  not  arouse  the  enthusiasm 
it  is  proving  itself  able  to  do  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  the  rising  generation.  Its  power  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  it  promises  opportunity  for  the  release  of 
higher  energies  and  nobler  motives  than  can  find 
free  play  amid  the  hampering  conditions  of  modern 
industrialism.  It  sees  clearly  that  before  refinement 
and  culture  are  possible,  not  to  speak  of  nobleness 
of  thought  and  aim,  the  foundations  of  physical 
efficiency  must  be  laid  strong  and  deep.  To  talk 
as  though  the  higher  life  were  possible  to  a  denizen 
of  the  slums  who  is  never  free  from  anxiety  for 
daily  bread,  it  stigmatises  as  sheer  hypocrisy,  or 
folly,  or  both.  The  Christianity  that  contents  itself 
with  inculcating  kindness  while  upholding  private 
property  in  the  means  of  livelihood  it  declares  to 
be  no  blessing  but  a  curse.  Men  must  eat  and 
drink  and  be  provided  with  clothing  and  shelter 
if  they  are  to  be  free  to  rise  above  mere  animalism 
and  to  think  great  and  beautiful  thoughts.  It  is 
all  very  well  for  the  Christian  to  be  taught  to  show 
sympathy  with  those  in  sorrow,  to  wipe  all  tears 
away,  and  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted;  but 
what  is  urgently  needed  is  that  he  should  learn  to 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 53 

attack  the  root  causes  of  sorrow  and  tears  and 
broken  hearts,  which  is  precisely  what  the  average 
Christian  seldom  thinks  of  doing.  We  content 
ourselves  with  more  or  less  spasmodic  attempts  to 
rescue  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  our  present  cruel 
social  system,  without  reaUsing  as  we  should  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  impossible  until  the  forces 
are  destroyed  which  make  such  wreckage  inevitable. 
Some  misapprehensions  concerning  Socialism.  — 
Few  would  quarrel  with  Socialism  if  it  were  under- 
stood to  mean  no  more  than  that  every  man  should 
be  free  to  be  and  give  his  best  to  the  community  with- 
out hurting  or  impoverishing  any  one  else.  But 
this,  many  would  say,  is  just  what  Socialism  would 
render  impossible,  for  it  would  mean  the  creation 
of  a  cast-iron  economic  system  in  which  true  in- 
dividuality would  be  crushed.  This  is  a  curious 
argument  to  bring  forward  in  face  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  individualism  in  the  past  or  even  in  the 
present,  but  it  is  quite  honestly  made  by  people  who 
would  become  Socialists  to-morrow  if  they  could 
only  be  sure  that  their  fears  in  this  respect  were 
groundless.  It  may  seem  a  paradoxical  thing  to 
say  that  the  most  conspicuous  fruit  of  unrestrained 
individualism  has  been  the  crushing  of  individuality 
and  that  the  thing  most  to  be  hoped  for  from  So- 
cialism will  be  the  development  of  individuality, 
but  so  it  is.  This  is  an  assertion  the  truth  of  which 
I  have  now  to  demonstrate  if  I  can.  Then,  again, 
there  are  many  people,  utterly  disgusted  and  weary 


154       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

with  our  present  social  system,  who  would  gladly 
welcome  Socialism  if  only  they  could  be  convinced 
that  it  is  practicable,  but  they  do  not  believe  it  is. 
They  will  assert  that  human  nature  has  to  be  reck- 
oned with,  and  that  human  nature,  being  largely 
selfish,  would  mar  the  most  ideal  system  ever  in- 
vented. To  these  objections  we  may  add  others 
derived  from  an  entire  misapprehension  of  the  prac- 
tical proposals  of  Socialism.  We  are  told  that 
Socialism  stands  for  free  love  (as  it  is  euphemis- 
tically called)  and  the  break-up  of  family  life;  that 
it  means  spoliation  and  confiscation ;  the  destruction 
of  all  trustworthy  incentive  to  industry;  the  main- 
tenance of  the  idle  and  vicious  at  the  expense  of 
the  thrifty  and  sober.  If  I  can  succeed  in  showing 
not  only  that  these  charges  are  unfounded,  but  are 
the  very  opposite  of  the  truth,  it  may  do  a  little  to 
clear  away  the  mists  of  prejudice  from  the  minds  of 
some  who  still  cling  to  the  belief  that  a  change  from 
our  present  unideal  condition  of  things  to  anything 
in  the  shape  of  Socialism  would  be  out  of  the  frying- 
pan  into  the  fire.  I  desire  to  take  the  highest  ground 
possible  in  my  appeal  to  the  motive  for  effecting 
the  change,  but  at  the  same  time  I  shall  willingly 
stand  condemned  if  I  fail  to  prove  that  the  change 
is  thoroughly  reasonable  and  practicable.  People, 
even  prelates,  have  pointed  out  that  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  is  impracticable  and  should  be  understood 
as  a  counsel  of  perfection  merely.  Well,  so  it  is  in 
such  a  society  as  ours  to-day.    I  will  defy  any  man 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 55 

to  live  by  the  principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
without  coming  to  grief  so  long  as  our  present  system 
is  tolerated.  What  we  want  is  a  system  wherein 
it  could  and  would  be  practised  without  loss  and 
ruin  to  those  we  love  most.  When  we  get  that  sys- 
tem we  shall  have  the  practical  realisation  of  the 
Christian  ideal  in  so  far  as  it  can  ever  find  outward 
expression  in  this  world.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that 
the  task  I  am  now  attempting  is  no  trivial  one,  and 
that  it  will  require  clear  and  definite  statement 
before  the  average  hard-headed  man  of  affairs  will 
consent  to  take  the  point  of  view  advocated  in  these 
pages.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  examine  briefly 
the  situation  for  which  Socialism  professes  to  be 
able  to  find  a  remedy.  I  will  then  suggest  the  remedy 
and  show  how  it  might  be  put  in  operation.  In  the 
discussion  of  the  problem  we  shall  have  to  face 
some  of  the  more  serious  objections  indicated  above 
and  show  what  Socialist  policy  really  is  in  regard 
to  them. 

The  present  situation  outlined.  —  In  a  tract  en- 
titled "  Facts  for  Socialists,"  published  by  the 
Fabian  Society  in  1906,  are  some  interesting  sta- 
tistics in  a  fairly  small  compass.  Let  me  urge  the 
reader  not  to  skip  these  figures,  for  they  are  most 
illuminating.  I  willingly  concede  that  statistics 
are  often  misleading,  and  that  at  the  best  they  never 
can  be  an  adequate  substitute  for  first-hand  ac- 
quaintance with  every  phase  of  the  subject  to  which 
they  relate;    but  in  this  instance  the  figures  serve 


156       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

to  focus  a  case  which  could  easily  be  established 
without  them;  they  are  simply  the  unemotional 
symbols  of  misery.  Whether  they  are  absolutely 
exact  or  not  is  not  a  matter  of  great  importance; 
their  value  consists  in  the  fact  that  they  are  an  ir- 
refutable general  statement  of  the  way  in  which 
rather  more  than  forty  millions  of  people  manage 
to  live  together  in  the  British  Islands  to-day. 

(i)  The  nation's  annual  income,  roughly  esti- 
mated, is  not  less  than  $9,000,000,000.  This 
amounts  to  about  $870  per  adult  man,  probably 
rather  more. 

(2)  How  are  the  commodities  represented  by 
this  vast  sum  produced?  They  are  produced  solely 
by  the  efforts  and  sacrifices  of  the  working  portion 
of  the  community  employed  upon  the  gifts  of  Na- 
ture. Labour  is  the  only  source  of  wealth.  The 
idle  rich  and  the  idle  poor  are  therefore  equally 
pensioners  upon  the  bounty  of  the  labour  of  others. 

(3)  Who  are  these  workers?  According  to  the 
census  of  1901  there  are  nearly  thirteen  million 
males  and  five  and  a  half  million  females,  or  a  total 
of  eighteen  million  workers  employed  in  industrial, 
agricultural,  commercial,  domestic,  and  professional 
occupations.  Over  thirteen  and  a  half  miUions  of 
people  under  twenty  years  of  age  are  unoccupied, 
and  nine  and  a  half  millions  over  twenty.  Of  these 
last,  however,  over  eight  and  a  half  millions  are 
women,  most  of  whom  may  be  engaged  in  domestic 
work.     But  on  the  other  hand  we  have  to  allow 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 57 

something  for  the  numbers  of  people  whose  work 
is  merely  nominal.  Nevertheless  there  were  in  this 
census  year  663,656  adult  men  (that  is,  one  in  every 
twenty)  who  did  not  profess  to  have  any  occupation 
whatever.  Most  of  these  belonged  to  the  class  of 
the  idle  rich. 

(4)  How  do  the  idle  rich  live?  Principally,  of 
course,  upon  what  is  called  rent  and  interest,  that 
is,  by  the  fruits  of  the  labour  and  abstinence  of 
others,  for  which  they  return  no  equivalent.  Their 
supposed  right  to  do  this  is  legally  guaranteed  to 
them  by  the  tacit  consent  of  the  whole  community. 

(5)  What  is  rent?  Rent  is  the  price  paid  for 
permission  to  occupy  and  use  lands,  houses,  mines, 
quarries,  iron-works,  gas-works,  water-works,  canals, 
fishings,  shootings,  markets,  highways,  and  such- 
like. The  total  rent  of  the  United  Kingdom  must 
amount  to  at  least  $1,450,000,000,  or  nearly  one-sixth 
of  the  total  annual  income.  It  is  probably  now  very 
much  more. 

(6)  What  is  interest?  Interest  is  the  price  paid 
for  permission  to  use  capital,  and  capital  is  that  por- 
tion of  the  national  wealth  which  is  used  in  producing 
more  wealth.  Strictly  speaking,  the  physical  and 
mental  efficiency  of  the  workers  themselves  is  capital, 
but  we  do  not  commonly  reckon  that  way  —  it  would 
be  better  if  we  did.  It  is  difficult,  too,  to  distinguish 
between  wealth  consumed  and  wealth  directly  em- 
ployed in  production.  But,  roughly  speaking,  the 
total  amount  received  annually  as  interest,  over  and 


158      CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

above  the  amount  consumed  by  the  workers  in  the 
process  of  production,  is  not  less  than  $1,800,000,000. 
We  thus  get  a  total  of  $3,250,000,000  annually  for  rent 
and  interest  together  out  of  the  total  income  stated 
above. 

(7)  Where  does  this  part  of  the  national  wealth 
(rent  and  interest)  go  to  ?  It  does  not  all  go  to  the 
idle  rich.  A  great  part  of  it  goes  in  what  are  called 
"wages  of  superintendence,"  or  "rent  of  ability." 
This  class  may  be  held  to  include  not  only  those 
employers  of  labour  who  directly  superintend  their 
own  business,  but  the  whole  of  the  literary,  artistic, 
and  governing  classes  of  the  community  —  in  fact 
all  who  do  not  belong  to  the  manual-labour  class. 
Of  course,  even  a  preacher  or  a  Prime  Minister  has 
to  be  fed,  clothed,  and  housed,  although  he  does  not 
spin  or  dig;  he  therefore  lives  upon  the  spinning 
and  digging  of  other  people,  although  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  kind  of  serivce  he  renders  is  worth 
something  in  return,  even  if  it  cannot  be  measured 
in  material  units.  But  this  whole  class,  which 
includes  all  grades,  from  a  clerk  at  a  few  dollars  a 
week  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  with  seventy- 
five  thousand  a  year,  takes  from  the  total  annual 
product  about  $2,300,000,000  in  profits  and  salaries. 

(8)  The  Classes  and  the  Masses.  If  we  include 
in  the  former  designation  all  those  who  are  per- 
mitted to  draw  and  dispose  of  "  the  three  rents  " 
(land,  capital,  and  abihty),  their  share  of  the  total 
annual  income  amounts  to  about  $5,550,000,000  — 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 59 

that  is,  to  nearly  two- thirds  of  the  whole.  If  we 
include  in  the  masses  all  who  belong  to  the  manual- 
labour  classes,  the  amount  allocated  to  them  can 
only  be  about  $3,450,000,000  —  that  is,  rather  more 
than  a  third  of  the  whole. 

(9)  Comparative  Numbers  of  Classes  and  Masses, 
About  one-seventieth  part  of  the  population  of  the 
United  Kingdom  owns  far  more  than  one-half  of  the 
entire  accumulated  wealth,  public  and  private. 
The  landlords  of  more  than  ten  acres  number  only 
176,520,  and  own  ten-elevenths  of  the  total  area; 
more  than  one-half  is  owned  by  2500  people.  More 
than  one-third  of  the  entire  income  of  the  United 
Kingdom  is  enjoyed  by  less  than  one-thirtieth  of  its 
people.  The  incomes  of  $800  per  annum  and  up- 
wards are  only  one  million  in  number.  Nearly  one- 
half  of  the  entire  income  of  the  United  Kingdom 
is  enjoyed  by  but  one-ninth  of  its  population.  The 
number  of  persons  employed  at  wages  in  the  indus- 
tries of  the  United  Kingdom  is  placed  at  thirteen  to 
fourteen  millions,  and  this  includes  over  four  million 
women.  Nine  hundred  and  thirty-nine  out  of 
every  thousand  persons  (about  half  of  whom  are 
adults)  die  without  property  worth  speaking  of, 
and  nine  hundred  and  sixty-one  out  of  every  thou- 
sand without  furniture,  investments,  or  effects 
worth  $1500. 

Some  of  these  figures  are  taken  from  Mr.  Chiozza 
Money's  "  Riches  and  Poverty,"  and  others  from 
Mr.  Mulhall's  "  Dictionary  of  Statistics."    ^ 


l6o       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

(10)  The  Struggle  to  Live.  The  interests  of  the 
workers  and  of  the  small  class  which  thus  takes  the 
lion's  share  of  the  produce  of  their  labour  are  there- 
fore of  necessity  essentially  opposed.  It  is  impossible 
for  the  workers  to  live  the  cultured  life  enjoyed  by 
the  privileged  moiety  of  the  nation;  consequently, 
one  secondary  result  of  their  poverty  is  that  they  are 
tempted  to  seek  enjoyment  in  coarse  and  harmful 
ways.  One  secondary  result  of  the  idleness  of  the 
rich  is  temptation  to  the  various  forms  of  excess 
which  luxury  encourages  when  the  mind  is  not 
occupied  by  any  serious  purpose. 

''The  force  by  which  this  conflict  of  interest  is 
maintained,  without  the  conscious  contrivance  of 
either  party,  is  competition,  diverted,  like  other 
forces,  from  its  legitimate  social  use.  The  legal 
disposers  of  the  great  natural  monopolies  are  able, 
by  means  of  legally  licensed  competition,  to  exact  the 
full  amount  of  their  economic  rents;  and  the  political 
economists  tell  us  that  so  long  as  these  natural  mo- 
nopolies are  left  practically  unrestrained  in  private 
hands  a  thorough  remedy  is  impossible."  ("  Facts 
for  Socialists,"  p.  12.) 

(11)  Some  Victims  of  the  Struggle.  Of  the  great 
permanent  army  of  the  "  unemployed,"  no  reUable 
statistics  can  be  obtained.  The  average  number  of 
persons  in  London  whose  home  is  the  ''  common 
lodging-house  "  is  over  30,000;  over  iioo  are  every 
night  found  in  the  casual  wards.  The  classes  on 
or  below  the  poverty  line  of  earnings  not  exceeding 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     l6l 

a  guinea  a  week  per  family  number  1,292,737,  or 
30.7  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population.  To  these 
must  be  added  99,830  inmates  of  workhouses,  hos- 
pitals, prisons,  industrial  schools,  etc.,  making 
altogether  nearly  1,400,000  persons  in  this  one  city 
alone  whose  condition  even  the  most  optimistic 
social  student  can  hardly  deem  satisfactory.  (These 
figures  are  taken  from  Mr.  Charles  Booth's  monu- 
mental work,  "  Life  and  Labour  of  the  People  in 
London.")  In  England  and  Wales,  in  1904,  90,776 
deaths  were  registered  as  having  taken  place  in 
workhouses,  infirmaries,  hospitals,  and  asylums,  or 
16.51  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths.  Of  these,  48,884 
occurred  in  workhouses,  32,141  in  hospitals,  and 
9751  in  lunatic  asylums.  In  London,  in  1904,  one 
person  in  every  three  died  in  the  workhouse,  hospital, 
or  lunatic  asylum.  A  large  number  of  those  com- 
pelled in  their  old  age  to  resort  to  the  workhouse 
have  made  ineffectual  efforts  at  thrifty  provision 
for  their  declining  years.  In  1890-91,  out  of 
175,852  inmates  of  workhouses  (one-third  being 
children,  and  another  third  women),  no  fewer  than 
14,808  had  been  members  of  benefit  societies. 
In  4593  cases  the  society  had  broken  up,  usually 
from  insolvency.  The  number  of  persons  who 
die  while  in  receipt  of  out-door  relief  is  not  included 
in  this  category.  Fifteen  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  persons  died  by  fatal  accidents  in 
1904:  981  losing  their  lives  in  mines,  quarries,  etc.; 
804  on  railways;    250  in  working  machinery;    520 


1 62       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

by  poisoning  and  poisonous  vapours;  and  203  in 
building  operations.  These  are  the  figures  for 
England  and  Wales  alone,  and  would  be  much  in- 
creased by  including  the  accidents  in  Scotland  and 
Ireland.  The  Board  of  Trade  report  on  railway 
accidents  during  the  same  year  shows  that  416  rail- 
way servants  were  killed  and  3921  injured  by  ac- 
cidents on  the  lines. 

Mr.  B.  S.  Rowntree  has  estimated,  in  his  well- 
known  work  on  "  Poverty,"  that  the  average  in- 
come from  all  sources  of  the  11,560  working-class 
families  in  York,  in  1899,  was  about  $425  a  year. 
But  15.46  per  cent,  of  the  wage-earning  class  were 
living  in  **  primary  poverty,"  that  is,  on  less  than 
enough  to  provide  the  minimum  of  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter.  Here  I  may  insert  a  paragraph  from 
Mr.  Rowntree's  book,  in  which  the  author  states  in 
a  vivid  and  telling  fashion  something  of  what  this 
involves  — 

"Let  us  clearly  understand  what  'merely  physical  effi- 
ciency '  means.  A  family  living  upon  the  scale  allowed  for 
in  this  estimate  must  never  spend  a  penny  on  railway  fare  or 
omnibus.  They  must  never  go  into  the  country  unless  they 
walk.  They  must  never  purchase  a  halfpenny  newspaper  or 
spend  a  penny  to  buy  a  ticket  for  a  popular  concert.  They 
must  write  no  letters  to  absent  children,  for  they  cannot 
afford  to  pay  the  postage.  They  must  never  contribute  any- 
thing to  their  church  or  chapel  or  give  any  help  to  a  neigh- 
bour which  costs  them  money.  They  cannot  save,  nor  can 
they  join  a  sick  club  or  trade  union,  because  they  cannot  pay 
the   necessary  subscriptions.    The   father  must  smoke   no 


THE    COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF  CHRISTIANITY     1 63 

tobacco  and  must  drink  no  beer.  The  mother  must  never 
buy  any  pretty  clothes  for  herself  or  for  her  children.  Should 
a  child  fall  ill  it  must  be  attended  by  a  parish  doctor;  should 
it  die  it  must  be  buried  by  the  parish.  Finally,  the  wage- 
earner  must  never  be  absent  from  his  work  for  a  single  day. 
If  any  of  these  conditions  are  broken,  the  extra  expenditure 
involved  is  met,  and  can  only  be  met,  by  limiting  the  diet,  or, 
in  other  words,  by  sacrificing  physical  efficiency." 

"  One  great  cause  of  the  short  and  miserable  lives 
of  the  poor  is  the  insanitary  condition  of  the  slums 
in  which  many  of  them  are  compelled  to  dwell. 
The  strongest  testimony  to  the  evil  effects  of  such 
surroundings  comes  from  the  insurance  companies. 
The  industrial  friendly  societies  have  in  each  large 
town  their  *  proscribed  streets.'  The  Liverpool 
Victoria  Legal  Friendly  Society  proscribes,  for  Liver- 
pool alone,  on  account  of  their  insanitary  character, 
167  streets  '  wherein  no  members  of  the  Society  may 
be  entered.'  Yet  these  unhealthy  streets  are  not 
too  bad  to  be  the  only  homes  of  thousands  of  the 
poorer  citizens  of  that  commercial  centre."  ("  Facts 
for  Socialists,"  p.  15.) 

It  is  difficult  to  know  what  proportion  of  the  wage- 
earning  class  receives  assistance  from  charity  or 
seeks  poor  relief  from  the  Guardians.  There  is 
among  the  poor  a  practically  universal  horror  of  the 
workhouse,  and  yet  the  number  of  paupers  in  actual 
receipt  of  public  relief  is  more  than  a  million  daily. 
Mr.  Charles  Booth  estimates  the  pauper  class  as 
about  one  in  six  of  the  manual  workers.     It  costs 


164       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

about  $80,000,000  a  year  to  maintain  these  paupers, 
not  to  speak  of  the  enormous  amount  of  private 
charity    which    is    dispensed. 

Where  is  the  remedy  ?  —  Let  me  beg  my  readers 
to  ponder  these  facts  carefully  and  endeavour  to 
reaUse  something  of  what  they  mean  in  bitter 
struggle,  hopeless  indifference,  deadening  of  finer 
feelings  and  impulses,  recklessness,  ignorance,  ani- 
mahsm,  and  prodigal  waste  of  life  and  energy. 
Is  there  any  sane  man  who  would  not  wish  to  see 
such  a  condition  of  things  altered?  But  what  is 
to  alter  it?  One  may  contend  that  it  is  inevitable, 
but  to  say  so  is  to  take  very  low  ground.  It  may 
be  contended,  too,  that  the  main  factor  in  the  case 
is  the  personal  equation,  and  that  if  things  were 
equitably  adjusted  to-morrow  they  would  be  wrong 
again  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours,  owing  to  the 
idleness  and  viciousness  of  that  part  of  the  popula- 
tion out  of  which  the  dregs  of  society  are  formed. 
Granted  the  force  in  this  contention,  it  still  remains 
overwhelmingly  true  that  it  is  the  pressure  of  cir- 
cumstances rather  than  the  natural  predisposition 
to  vice  which  accounts  for  most  of  the  sufferings 
of  the  poor;  and,  even  if  the  sterner  charge  were 
abundantly  justified,  surely  no  compassionate  human 
being  could  be  content  to  go  on  enjoying  the  reward 
of  virtue,  if  that  reward  meant  living  upon  the 
produce  of  the  labour  of  others,  and  entailed  the 
infliction  of  misery  and  degradation  upon  masses 
of  human  beings  whose  life  he  never  touched  save 


THE    COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 65 

to  exploit  it.  In  saying  this  I  have  no  intention  of 
indulging  in  superficial  censures  of  the  ordinary 
man  of  wealth,  who  is  in  many  cases  no  more  to 
blame  for  the  unjust  system  by  which  he  profits  than 
a  log  of  wood  is  to  blame  for  the  storm  which  flings 
it  high  up  on  the  beach.  In  fact  there  are  not  a 
few  rich  men  who  feel  that  the  present  extremes  of 
wealth  and  poverty  are  intolerable;  but  so  long  as 
the  present  system  obtains  they  have  almost  no 
power  to  alter  things.  Charity  is  worse  than  use- 
less. As  a  temporary  measure  it  may  occasionally 
have  the  same  value  as  a  stimulant  in  the  body  of  a 
sick  man,  but  systematically  practised  it  is  a  de- 
moraHsing  influence.  And  if  not  charity  —  what  ? 
Here  is  one  standing  challenge  with  which  Socialists 
may  fairly  meet  all  objections  to  the  remedy  they 
themselves  propose.  There  is  no  individual  and 
no  party  that  can  claim  to  be  putting  forward 
anything  but  palliatives  in  the  effort  to  deal  with  our 
social  sores.  General  Booth  asked  for  a  million 
of  money  in  order  to  save  the  submerged  tenth. 
He  might  have  said  the  submerged  half  and  not 
been  far  wide  of  the  mark.  He  got  it,  and  right 
nobly  has  he  endeavoured  to  use  it.  Has  he  cut 
at  the  root  of  the  evil?  Assuredly  not.  Has  he 
even  made  any  great  observable  difference  to  the 
total  of  want  and  misery?  He  has  made  some 
difference  undoubtedly,  but  the  causes  are  as  vigor- 
ously at  work  as  ever  which  produce  the  wretched 
humanity  to  whose  rescue  this  servant  of  God  tried 


1 66        CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

to  come.  It  is  no  use,  and  will  be  no  use,  merely 
trying  to  save  the  wounded;  we  must  stop  the 
battle.  We  may  as  well  admit,  without  any  further 
demur,  that  whether  Socialism,  be  the  remedy  or 
not  there  is  no  other. 

It  is  this  discovery  which  makes  one  distrustful 
of  the  permanent  value  of  the  multitudinous  activi- 
ties of  many  of  the  churches  in  our  poorer  neigh- 
bourhoods at  the  present  time.  Not  for  a  moment 
would  I  attempt  to  decry  the  motives  of  those  who 
promote  them,  but  when  one  reads  down  the  Hst  of 
Mothers'  Meetings,  Sunshine  Committees,  Temper- 
ance Societies,  Soup  Kitchens,  and  such-Uke,  one 
cannot  but  think  of  the  battle  that  is  raging  with 
unabated  fury  outside  these  temporary  hospitals. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  many  of  the  most  earnest  and 
devoted  workers  in  the  field  of  practical  social 
service  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion  that, 
so  far  as  permanent  effect  upon  the  poverty  line 
is  concerned,  their  efforts  are  equivalent  to  throwing 
good  soil  into  the  sea.  It  is  a  healthy  sign  of  the 
times  that  an  increasing  number  of  the  more  com- 
fortable classes  desire  to  take  part  in  such  enter- 
prises, but  something  more  will  be  needed  before 
they  can  begin  to  tell  to  any  great  extent;  it  is  like 
trying  to  stop  a  leak  with  sugar.  The  same  might 
be  said  of  going  to  live  side  by  side  with  the  poor 
in  the  slums.  ''C'est  magnifique,  mais  ce  n'est 
pas  la  guerre."  One  cannot  really  share  the  life 
of  the   poor   without  sharing  to   the   full  in  the 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 67 

anxieties  and  dreads  caused  by  fear  of  unemploy- 
ment and  the  consequent  starvation,  with  nothing 
but  the  workhouse  at  the  end  of  the  long  and  weary 
road  which  leads  to  old  age.  If  the  saviour  knows 
that  he  can  leave  the  slum  and  go  back  to  civiUsa- 
tion  when  he  likes,  he  cannot  really  be  a  sharer 
from  inside  in  the  life  of  the  poor  he  wants  to 
succour,  and  he  cannot  help  them  out  of  their 
difficulties.  He  may  try  to  teach  them  refinement, 
but  they  have  not  the  equipment  necessary  for 
living  on  that  level;  environment  is  too  much  for 
them.  Besides,  what  is  wanted  is  not  slum  sharing 
but  slum  destruction,  not  bringing  the  rich  in  but 
getting  the  poor  out;  and  that  will  never  be  done 
while  the  competitive  system  lasts  under  which 
one  class  does  the  work  and  another  reaps  the 
benefit. 

The  pooling  of  resources.  —  Here,  then,  is  the 
problem,  and  the  solution  should  not  be  beyond 
the  wit  of  man.  What  is  wanted  is  that  labourer 
and  capitalist  should  be  the  same  person  in  the 
lump.  It  will  have  to  be  in  the  lump,  because  we 
cannot  do  without  one  another,  and  do  not  want 
to  do  without  one  another.  If  we  could  all  go  and 
live  an  isolated  self-sufficient  life  on  our  own  indi- 
vidual Crusoe's  island,  we  might  manage  to  get 
on  and  keep  body  and  soul  together,  but  it  would 
be  a  poor  performance  at  the  best.  We  would 
rather  have  the  slum  with  social  companionship 
than  an  earthly  paradise  without  it. 


1 68        CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

"Oh  solitude,  where  are  the  charms 
That  sages  have  seen  in  thy  face? 
Better  dwell  in  the  midst  of  alarms 
Than  reign  in  this  horrible  place," 

as  poor  Robinson  himself  is  supposed  to  have 
soliloquised.  But  if  in  addition  to  social  com- 
panionship we  want  ordinary  comforts  and  the 
means  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  cultivated  life,  we 
can  neither  live  nor  work  alone ;  we  have  to  minister 
to  one  another's  needs  whether  we  will  or  no,  and 
to  every  man  his  accustomed  task.  He  who  makes 
bricks  requires  a  different  training  from  him  who 
makes  watches;  and  the  more  complicated  the 
product  the  greater  the  differentiation  of  function. 
It  would  be  a  useful  exercise  for  the  members  of 
an  ordinary  middle-class  family  to  attempt  some 
time  to  count  up  how  many  hands  have  been  at 
work  to  provide  the  breakfast  table.  Human 
society  from  the  economic  point  of  view  is  a  most 
complicated  structure,  in  which  every  real  worker 
is  in  some  way  a  contributor  to  the  common  good. 
Even  now,  under  our  present  inharmonious  social 
system,  we  find  it  impossible  to  dispense  with  one 
another's  aid  in  providing  the  good  things  of  life. 
Hence  the  necessity  for  reckoning  the  nation's 
wealth  and  labour  in  the  lump;  we  can  do  nothing 
else  if  a  truly  civilised  life  is  to  be  possible. 

Abolition  of  unearned  incomes  and  organisation 
of  labour.  —  But,  if  we  are  to  reckon  in  this  way, 
private  exploitation  of  the  common  store  will  have 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 69 

to  cease,  and  that  is  just  the  issue  which  is  now 
before  us.  All  taking  of  rent  and  interest  for  which 
no  equivalent  services  are  rendered  is  robbery. 
If  we  could  only  succeed  in  getting  rid  of  this  horrible 
burden,  the  share  of  the  actual  producers  of  wealth 
would,  of  course,  be  proportionately  greater;  it 
would  be  multiplied  by  three  right  off,  even  as 
things  are.  But  heroic  measures  of  this  kind, 
although  in  the  abstract  perfectly  just,  would  prove 
futile  without  a  bettej:  organisation  of  the  national 
resources  than  we  have  at  present.  Under  existing 
conditions  production  is  more  or  less  haphazard, 
every  capitalist  competing  with  his  neighbour  or 
with  foreign  countries  as  to  who  shall  secure  the 
markets,  with  the  result  that  every  now  and  then 
we  have  the  glut  known  as  over-production.  It 
may  be  questioned,  however,  whether  there  is 
really  such  a  thing  as  over-production;  there  is 
proportional  over-production.  If  a  few  thousand 
hands  are  employed  in  producing  toothpicks  they 
represent  so  much  energy  withdrawn  from  the 
production  of  other  useful  and  agreeable  articles. 
The  time  will  come  when  the  community  will 
require,  not  less  toothpicks,  perhaps,  but  more 
boots  and  shoes;  the  demand  for  toothpicks  will 
therefore  slacken  proportionately;  the  makers  will 
be  thrown  out  of  work  and  go  to  swell  the  army  of 
the  unemployed.  They  have  now  no  means  either 
of  doing  the  work  to  which  they  are  accustomed  or 
of  obtaining  the  boots  and  shoes  which  they  need 


170       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

as  much  as  other  people;  consequently  production 
is  disorganised,  wealth  goes  to  waste,  and  we  have 
the  melancholy  spectacle  of  people  suffering  for 
lack  of  a  commodity  which  could  have  been  abun- 
dantly supplied  to  every  member  of  the  community 
if  only  production  had  been  properly  regulated. 
Clearly,  therefore,  what  is  wanted  is  that  the  com- 
munity should  be  one  big  producing  firm,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  enormous  companies  which  are 
springing  into  existence  at  the  present  time  with 
the  object  of  supplying  the  public  with  every  con- 
ceivable object  of  desire  from  a  sewing-needle  to 
a  flying-machine.  Is  this  impossible?  Certainly 
not,  if  we  really  wish  to  do  it.  I  shall  presently 
try  to  show  how  it  could  be  done  without  dislocat- 
ing any  part  of  our  present  delicately  poised  eco- 
nomic machinery.  The  first  and  most  enormous 
gain  from  such  a  salutary  change  would  be  the 
substitution  of  communal  for  private  interest  as 
the  motive  of  production.  In  the  name  of  human 
wisdom,  not  to  speak  of  common  justice,  why 
should  it  be  in  the  power  of  one  man  to  say  to  another, 
"  The  thing  you  are  now  producing  is  for  my  benefit. 
I  will  give  you  a  small  share  of  the  proceeds,  but  as 
soon  as  it  ceases  to  pay  me  to  have  this  article  pro- 
duced you  must  go  away;  I  shall  retain  whatever 
possession  in  it  may  still  have  value;  it  is  not  yours, 
but  mine"?  If  our  eyes  were  not  so  blinded  by 
what  we  have  been  used  to  we  should  see  that  such 
a  practice  is  monstrous ;    the  interests  of  capital 


THE   COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF  CHRISTIANITY     171 

and  labour  ought  never  to  have  been  severed  in 
any  such  way,  for  ultimately  capital  and  labour 
imply  each  other;  there  can  be  no  capital  other 
than  what  is  produced  by  labour  exercising  itself 
on  the  raw  material  supplied  by  Nature.  This 
means  that  the  only  sources  of  wealth  are  the  earth 
and  the  human  ingenuity  and  industry  brought  to 
bear  upon  it.  By  what  natural  right  or  title  does 
any  man  claim  to  appropriate  one  foot  of  the  earth, 
and  exclude  his  fellow-creatures  from  it  except  on 
condition  that  they  shall  gratuitously  provide  him 
with  a  share  of  what  they  draw  from  it?  Rent 
and  interest  are  therefore  in  origin  immoral;  they 
represent  the  expropriation  of  the  many  for  the 
benefit  of  the  few. 

Communal  responsibility  for  the  individual.  — 
Still,  as  things  now  are,  the  ordinary  private  citizen 
cannot  get  rid  of  the  necessity  for  making  use  of 
rent  and  interest  if  he  is  to  provide  for  the  future  of 
those  dependent  upon  him,  or  for  his  own  sickness 
or  old  age.  The  community  will  not  at  present 
charge  itself  with  the  duty  of  maintaining  either 
him  or  his  in  the  standard  of  comfort  to  which 
they  have  been  accustomed;  the  utmost  it  will 
do  is  to  provide  the  semi-starvation  of  outdoor 
relief,  or  the  humiliating  alternative  of  the  work- 
house. Everything  is  done  to  discourage  self- 
respecting  people  from  seeking  these  means  of 
protection  from  want  and  misfortune,  with  the 
inevitable  result  that  a  class  is  created  to  whom 


172        CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

self-respect  is  a  secondary  matter.  This  would  not 
be  so  if  it  were  plainly  recognised  that  the  natural 
resources  of  any  community  belong  equally  to  all, 
and  that,  if  labour  combines  to  develop  them, 
every  individual  member  is  entitled  to  take  his 
share  both  in  the  development  and  in  the  result. 
Seeing  that  pure  individualism  is  impossible,  why 
should  we  continue  to  tolerate  the  hardships  which 
accrue  from  partial  individualism?  The  simple 
cure  for  the  more  obvious  disadvantages  of  our 
present  system,  or  want  of  system,  is  that  the  com- 
munity should  appropriate  the  whole  of  the  wealth 
at  present  represented  by  natural  resources  as 
well  as  by  rent  and  interest,  and  should  then  charge 
itself  not  only  with  the  organisation  of  industry, 
but  with  the  proper  maintenance  of  every  indi- 
vidual in  the  standard  of  comfort  and  well-being 
to  which  his  equitable  share  of  the  common  stock 
entitles  him.  This  is  the  least  that  Justice  would 
say.  Christian  principle  would  go  farther,  and 
affirm  that  the  community  should  charge  itself 
with  the  duty  of  caring  for  the  weak  and  the  dis- 
abled without  any  taint  of  pauperism.  But  there 
would  have  to  be  no  drones  in  the  hive.  Not  only 
would  the  right  to  work  be  fully  admitted,  but  it' 
would  be  considered  immoral  that  any  man  should 
expect  to  live  without  work.  There  would  be  no 
idle  rich  and  no  idle  poor.  Neither  would  there 
be  any  premium  put  upon  inefficiency,  quite  the 
contrary.    Those   who   did   their   work   badly,   or 


THE    COMMON   OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 73 

shirked  their  duty,  or  were  without  ambition  and 
self-respect,  would  be  the  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water  for  the  rest  —  not  by  special 
enactment,  but  by  the  sheer  pressure  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  society  can  continue  to  exist. 

To  sum  up  once  more.  The  object  of  our  analysis 
of  primitive,  as  contrasted  with  modern,  Christianity 
has  been  to  show  that  its  original  objective  was  the 
realisation  of  a  universal  brotherhood  on  earth,  a 
social  order  in  which  every  individual  would  be  free 
to  do  his  best  for  all  and  find  his  true  happiness 
therein.  But  this  is  the  fundamental  principle  of 
Socialism  too.  Even  from  the  point  of  view  of 
material  advantage  Socialism  advocates  the  com- 
bination of  resources  for  the  common  good.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  moral  obligation  it  is  still  more 
closely  in  accord  with  Christian  principle,  for  it 
desires  the  fullest  individual  self-expression  for  the 
enrichment  of  the  common  life;  from  the  com- 
munity it  desires  the  best  for  the  weakest.  It  be- 
lieves that  the  highest  kind  of  life  is  only  possible 
when  the  material  basis  has  been  properly  secured. 
It  seeks  to  develop  individuality  by  removing,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  present  barriers  which  hinder  its 
expression  in  the  average  man.  The  situation  for 
which  it  professes  to  find  a  remedy  is  obvious,  the 
most  glaring  of  its  anomalies  being  that  the  vast 
majority  of  this  nation  —  or  any  civilised  nation  for 
that  matter  —  receives  a  comparatively  small  pro- 
portion of  the  total  annual  income,  with  the  result 


174       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

that  at  least  one-third  of  the  population  lives  on  or 
below  the  line  of  chronic  poverty,  thus  diminishing 
enormously  the  corporate  national  efficiency  which 
would  otherwise  be  possible.  In  addition  to  the 
misery  thus  engendered  is  the  narrowing  of  the  mental 
and  spiritual  horizon  through  lack  of  leisure,  com- 
fort, and  freedom  from  monotony.  All  remedies 
short  of  Socialism  are  of  the  nature  of  palliatives 
merely.  What  is  wanted  is  the  systematic  com- 
bination of  resources  for  the  advantage  of  the  whole 
community.  Haphazard  production  would  then 
cease,  and  we  should  avoid  the  waste  which  attends 
our  present  competitive  methods.  The  more  the 
community  can  produce  the  better,  so  long  as  pro- 
duction is  properly  regulated;  we  are  collectively 
the  poorer  by  every  pair  of  idle  hands  which  might 
be  employed  in  producing  something.    The  nation 

—  and  ultimately  all  nations  working  in  harmony 

—  ought  to  be  one  vast  producing  firm,  with  every 
citizen  an  active  partner  and  shareholder.  This 
would  mean  the  abolition  of  the  present  gulf  between 
capitalism  and  labour;  since  capital  and  labour  are 
ultimately  one,  the  capitalist  and  the  labourer  ought 
to  be  the  same  person.  This  will  mean  getting  rid 
of  the  existing  burdens  upon  industry  in  the  shape 
of  rent  and  interest  paid  to  the  non-producing  mem- 
bers of  the  community.  The  industrial  Common- 
wealth will  then  undertake  the  maintenance  of  every 
individual  in  that  standard  of  comfort  attained  by 
the  community  as  a  whole,  and  considered  to  be  the 


THE   COMMON  OBJECTIVE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     1 75 

minimum  requisite  for  general  efficiency.  Every 
one  would  be  entitled  to  do  and  receive  his  share  in 
the  production  of  the  communal  wealth;  idleness 
would  have  to  cease  at  both  ends  of  the  social  scale. 
Anxiety  for  the  primal  necessities  of  life  would 
be  a  thing  of  the  past.  This  is  the  true  objec- 
tive both  of  Christianity  and  Socialism.  It  may 
be  more  than  this,  but  it  is  at  least  this.  We  have 
now  to  see  how  it  may  be  most  easily  attained,  and 
what  further  results  may  be  expected  from  it. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES 

Difference  in  economic  problems  of  primitive 
Christianity  and  modern  Socialism.  —  It  will  be 
obvious  from  the  foregoing  that  modern  Socialism 
takes  within  its  purview  problems  which  to  primitive 
Christianity  were  non-existent.  If  the  followers  of 
Jesus  believed  that  the  world  was  to  be  put  right 
by  Divine  power  descending  suddenly  upon  organised 
society  from  without,  instead  of  operating  slowly 
from  within,  they  could  hardly  be  expected  to  foresee 
the  methods  by  which  Socialism  proposes  to  achieve 
the  same  result  to-day.  Moreover,  seeing  that 
society  itseU  was,  in  many  respects,  quite  differently 
organised  from  what  it  is  to-day,  the  same  set  of 
recommendations  would  not  obtain  even  if  the  primi- 
tive Christians  had  been  clear-sighted  enough  to  go 
to  the  root  of  the  economic  causes  of  their  social 
disabilities.  The  interesting  little  communistic  ex- 
periment of  the  apostolic  church  at  Jerusalem  can, 
therefore,  be  of  no  assistance  to  us  in  solving  our 
present-day  problems,  beyond  the  fact  that  it  il- 
lustrates the  spirit  in  which  to  approach  them;  it 
was  in  no  sense  the  co-operative  organisation  of 
productive  effort,  it  was   only  a  generous   sharing 

176 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     1 77 

up  of  scanty  resources  for  purposes  of  consump- 
tion. 

Economics  of  ancient  Israel.  —  But  there  was  one 
respect  in  which  the  ancient  religion  which  produced 
Christianity  had  lent  its  sanction  to  an  economic 
ideal  which  still  waits  for  realisation  in  the  western 
world  on  a  national  scale.  According  to  the  law 
of  Israel,  the  national  territory  was  held  to  belong 
to  God,  and  to  be  used  only  for  the  common  good. 
In  the  Book  of  Leviticus  are  a  number  of  interest- 
ing enactments  regulating  the  use  of  the  soil  in  an 
agricultural  community.  It  will  be  seen  from  an 
examination  of  these  statutes  that  ancient  Israel 
went  far  in  the  direction  of  modern  Socialism. 
Every  fiftieth  year  was  to  be  kept  as  a  year  of  jubilee, 
in  which  every  man  was  to  be  re-instated  in  his  pos- 
sessions, however  unfortunate  he  might  have  been  in 
the  way  of  losing  them  beforehand.  If  he  had  been 
enslaved  —  that  is,  compelled  by  circumstances  to 
work  for  the  benefit  of  some  private  individual  — 
he  was  to  be  sent  back  at  once  to  his  family  when 
the  year  of  jubilee  came. 

"In  this  year  of  jubilee  ye  shall  return  every  man  unto 
his  possession.  And  if  thou  sell  aught  unto  thy  neighbour, 
or  buyest  aught  of  thy  neighbour's  hand,  ye  shall  not  oppress 
one  another"  (Lev.  xxv.  13,  14). 

"The  land  shall  not  be  sold  for  ever;  for  the  land  is  mine; 
for  ye  are  strangers  and  sojourners  with  me.  And  in  all  the 
land  of  your  possession  ye  shall  grant  a  redemption  for  the 
land"  (v.  24). 


178       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

"And  if  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor,  and  fallen  in  decay 
with  thee;  then  thou  shalt  relieve  him;  yea,  though  he  be  a 
stranger,  or  a  sojourner;  that  he  may  live  with  thee.  Take 
thou  no  usury  of  him  or  increase;  but  fear  thy  God;  that 
thy  brother  may  live  with  thee.  Thou  shalt  not  give  him  thy 
money  upon  usury,  nor  lend  him  thy  victuals  for  increase" 

(vv.  35-37)- 

"And  if  thy  brother  that  dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen  poor 
and  be  sold  unto  thee ;  thou  shall  not  compel  him  to  serve  as 
a  bond  servant.  But  as  an  hired  servant,  and  as  a  sojourner, 
he  shall  be  with  thee,  and  shall  serve  thee  unto  the  year  of 
jubilee.  .  .  .  Thou  shalt  not  rule  over  him  with  rigour;  but 
shalt  fear  thy  God"  (w.  39,  40,  43). 

These  regulations  are  at  least  interesting  as  an 
honest  attempt  to  prevent  the  natural  wealth  of  the 
community  from  becoming  concentrated  in  a  few 
hands.  Their  basic  principle  is  that  the  land  is 
loaned  by  God  to  the  nation,  and  is  not  to  be  mo- 
nopolised by  a  fortunate  few  who  are  thereby  en- 
abled to  live  by  the  toil  of  others.  That  such  a 
code  of  laws  would  be  unsuitable  for  such  a  highly 
complex  civilisation  as  ours  goes  without  saying,  but 
the  ideal  which  here  receives  the  sanction  of  religion 
is  well  worthy  of  reverence  in  any  civilisation. 

In  another  part  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  most 
illuminating  description  of  the  way  in  which  mo- 
nopolies in  natural  resources  are  created.  In  Gen. 
xlvii.  we  are  told  of  the  way  in  which  a  wily  Hebrew 
Prime  Minister  managed  to  grab  for  the  crown  the 
greater  part  of  the  corn-bearing  land  of  Egypt  as 
well  as  the  people  who  lived  on  it. 


4f    r      THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     1 79 

"And  there  was  no  bread  in  all  the  land;  for  the  famine 
was  very  sore,  so  that  the  land  of  Egypt  and  all  the  land  of 
Canaan  fainted  by  reason  of  the  famine.  And  Joseph 
gathered  up  all  the  money  that  was  found  in  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  for  the  corn  which  they 
bought :  and  Joseph  brought  the  money  into  Pharaoh's  house. 
And  when  money  failed  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  in  the  land 
of  Canaan,  all  the  Egyptians  came  unto  Joseph,  and  said. 
Give  us  bread:  for  why  should  we  die  in  thy  presence?  for 
the  money  faileth.  And  Joseph  said,  Give  your  cattle;  and 
I  will  give  you  for  your  cattle,  if  money  fail.  And  they 
brought  their  cattle  unto  Joseph:  and  Joseph  gave  them 
bread  in  exchange  for  horses,  and  for  the  flocks,  and  for  the 
cattle  of  the  herds,  and  for  the  asses:  and  he  fed  them  with 
bread  for  all  their  cattle  for  that  year.  When  that  year  was 
ended,  they  came  unto  him  the  second  year,  and  said  unto 
him.  We  will  not  hide  it  from  my  lord,  how  that  our  money 
is  spent;  my  lord  also  hath  our  herds  of  cattle;  there  is  not 
aught  left  in  the  sight  of  my  lord,  but  our  bodies  and  our 
lands :  Wherefore  shall  we  die  before  thine  eyes,  both  we  and 
our  land?  buy  us  and  our  land  for  bread,  and  we  and  our 
land  will  be  servants  unto  Pharaoh:  and  give  us  seed,  that 
we  may  live,  and  not  die,  that  the  land  be  not  desolate.  And 
Joseph  bought  all  the  land  of  Egypt  for  Pharaoh;  for  the 
Egyptians  sold  every  man  his  field,  because  the  famine  pre- 
vailed over  them:  so  the  land  became  Pharaoh's." 

The  essence  of  monopoly.  — This  brilliant  idea  of 
Joseph's  has  been  systematically  practised  ever 
since,  though  not  always  for  Pharaoh.  Nowadays 
it  is  being  done  for  the  financier;  in  feudal  times  it 
was  done  for  the  man  with  the  strongest  arm, 
whom  the  freeman  had  either  to  choose  as  a  pro- 
tector or  an  enemy  —  in  fact,  this  is  the  way  in 


l8o       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

which  a  good  deal  of  the  land  of  Europe  has  passed 
into  the  hands  of  its  present  holders.  Monopoly  in 
the  gifts  of  Nature  invariably  means  taking  advan- 
tage of  a  fellow-creature's  need.  The  monopoUst 
may  be  the  first-comer,  or  the  strong-handed  robber, 
or  the  cunning  schemer,  or  the  industrious  worker 
—  it  matters  not;  but  in  any  and  every  case  his 
monopoly  means  that  others  have  to  work  for  him 
because  they  have  to  live.  In  V/estern  civihsation 
the  position  of  the  monopoUst  is  called  a  legal  right, 
and  is  guaranteed  to  him  by  the  community  at 
whose  expense  he  holds  it.  In  this  way  practically 
every  inch  of  the  surface  of  this  country,  as  well  as 
the  mineral  wealth  below  ground,  is  owned  by  a 
comparatively  few  individuals.  They  own  the  fresh 
water,  too,  and  would  own  the  salt  sea  itself,  in 
addition  to  all  the  fresh  air  and  sunshine,  if  there 
were  any  practical  means  of  establishing  a  per- 
manent claim.  If  these  things  have  not  been  pri- 
vately appropriated  and  lent  out  to  the  rest  of 
humanity  on  terms  similar  to  the  renting  of  landed 
property,  it  can  only  be  because  Joseph  has  thought 
the  matter  carefully  out  and  decided  that  the  thing 
cannot  be  done.  If  it  could,  we  may  be  quite  sure 
that  a  Company  would  be  formed  like  the  Standard 
Oil  Trust  to  buy  up  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  hire  it 
out  in  bucketfuls  to  those  who  want  to  sail  ships  on 
it;  or  the  air  would  be  bottled,  labelled,  and  sold 
at  as  high  a  price  as  possible  to  those  who  want  to 
breathe.    In  principle  there  is  no  difference  what- 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     l8l 

ever  between  privately  appropriating  lands,  woods, 
and  mines,  and  privately  appropriating  the  at- 
mosphere itself;  the  only  difference  is  in  feasi- 
bility. 

Natural  resources  ought  not  to  be  privately  owned. 
—  Well,  now,  seeing  it  is  plain  enough  that  every- 
thing upon  which  manual  labour  can  exercise  itself 
for  the  supply  of  the  primal  necessities  of  life  must 
come  out  of  the  earth,  the  sea,  or  the  air,  why 
should  organised  society  be  foolish  enough  to  let 
these  sources  of  our  wealth  —  or  any  of  them  —  be 
held  for  private  profit  ?  We  have  already  seen  that 
if  a  civilised  life  is  to  be  possible  individuals  must 
combine.  Robinson  Crusoe  might  have  owned  the 
richest  island  in  the  world,  but  he  could  neither 
sink  a  mine  nor  build  a  steamship,  even  though  he 
might  know  all  about  the  way  to  do  both.  From 
the  economic  point  of  view  two  are  more  than 
twice  one  if  they  work  together  and  specialise.  If, 
then,  combination  is  absolutely  necessary  for  civil- 
ised life,  why  should  the  raw  material  of  wealth  — 
namely,  natural  resources  —  be  privately  owned  and 
administered  in  any  civilised  community?  Perfect 
combination  is  impossible  so  long  as  a  private  mo- 
nopoly is  permitted  to  exist  in  the  very  things  required 
by  labour  before  it  can  produce  anything.  In  the 
preceding  chapter  we  noted  that  the  price  paid  for 
permission  to  occupy  and  use  the  natural  resources 
of  this  country,  plus  the  improvements  effected  upon 
them  by  labour  —  that  is,  the  lands,  houses,  mines, 


1 82       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

quarries,  iron-works,  gas-works,  water-works,  canals, 
fishings,  shootings,  markets,  highways,  and  such-like 
—  amounts  to  nearly  $1,500,000,000  annually.  It 
is  impossible  to  distinguish  completely  between  the 
natural  resources  which  have  been  improved  in  this 
way  and  other  kinds  of  capital,  such  as  machinery; 
as  a  matter  of  convenience,  however,  the  classifica- 
tion is  usually  made  somewhat  in  the  manner  now 
indicated.  It  should  be  pointed  out  in  this  connec- 
tion that  land  or  other  natural  resources  have  no 
real  value  apart  from  their  accessibihty  to  labour. 
It  is  labour  that  gives  value  to  natural  resources, 
even  before  it  is  directly  exercised  upon  them;  land 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  market  town,  for  in- 
stance, has  a  greater  letting  or  selling  value  than 
land  at  a  distance  from  it,  although  it  may  lie  un- 
used, and  the  legal  owner  may  have  done  nothing 
either  to  improve  it  himself  for  the  general  benefit 
or  to  allow  any  one  else  to  do  so.  It  does  not  re- 
quire much  perspicacity  to  see  that  the  value  of 
such  land  has  been  created  solely  and  entirely  by 
the  organised  community  around  it,  and  yet,  under 
the  system  of  private  ownership,  that  value  is  com- 
pletely at  the  disposal  of  the  individual  in  legal 
possession.  But  the  truth  is  that  all  the  land  in 
this  country  which  has  a  selling  value  at  all  comes 
under  the  same  category,  with  the  exception  of 
those  portions  whose  resources  have  been  developed 
by  the  owner  himself.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  what  proportion  of  the  total  area  has  been 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES      1 83 

thus  improved;  probably  it  would  be  found  to  be 
rather  small  —  even  the  owner's  improvements  re- 
ceiving the  greater  part  of  their  value  from  the 
communal  activities  around. 

Evil  effects  of  private  ownership  of  land.  —  When, 
therefore,  we  remember  that  less  than  180,000 
people  own  ten-elevenths  of  the  land  of  this  coun- 
try, and  that  more  than  one-half  is  owned  by  2500 
people,  the  urgency  of  the  problem  of  obtaining  un- 
hindered access  to  the  natural  resources  of  a  territory 
containing  between  forty  and  fifty  milHons  of  people 
becomes  fully  apparent.  These  natural  resources 
do  not  rightfully  belong  to  private  owners,  for 
they  are  as  necessary  to  the  life  of  the  whole  com- 
munity as  the  air  we  breathe.  If  to-morrow  the 
whole  of  the  landlords  of  this  country  were  to 
determine,  in  a  fit  of  madness,  to  expel  everybody 
from  the  use  of  what  is  legally  theirs,  we  should 
have  an  impossible  situation  at  once,  and  no  Gov- 
ernment, however  imbued  with  convictions  about 
the  sacred  rights  of  property,  would  tolerate  their 
action  for  a  moment;  in  fact,  it  would  instantly 
step  in  and  claim  the  forbidden  territory  on  behalf 
of  the  nation  on  the  simple  ground  that  the  nation 
must  live.  If  this  can  be  seen  so  plainly  hypo- 
thetically,  why  not  actually?  What  is  necessary  to 
all  should  belong  to  all.  Even  supposing  that  the 
owners  of  land  all  did  their  utmost  in  making  the 
best  of  it  for  the  common  good,  this  principle  would 
still  hold;  for  it  is  not  well  that  the  material  source 


184       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

of  all  the  necessaries  of  life  should  be  administered 
by  others  than  those  directly  responsible  to  the 
community  at  large.  But  it  is  far  indeed  from  being 
the  case  that  the  natural  resources  of  the  British 
Islands  are  being  well  and  wisely  developed  for  the 
benefit  of  the  inhabitants.  An  enormous  amount  is 
shut  away  altogether  from  public  use  after  the 
fashion  we  have  just  imagined  to  be  universal; 
thousands  of  acres  are  being  systematically  kept 
out  of  cultivation  and  turned  into  parks,  sheep- 
walks,  or  shootings.  It  may  be  contended  that  this 
is  better  than  using  them  all  up  for  cabbage-beds, 
or  squaUd  areas  like  the  Black  Country.  Quite  so; 
but  even  on  this  ground  there  is  no  justification  for 
barring  out  the  nation  from  its  own  and  preserving 
it  for  a  privileged  few;  it  is  not  the  land-owning 
class  only  that  is  capable  of  enjoying  beautiful 
scenery  and  outdoor  advantages  generally.  The 
practice  becomes  still  more  selfish  when  it  means, 
as  has  so  often  been  the  case,  that  the  actual  culti- 
vators of  the  land  have  been  evicted  in  order  that 
broad  acres  may  be  turned  into  hunting-grounds  for 
plutocrats  and  their  friends.  The  question  takes  on 
a  still  different  aspect  when  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
wringing  as  much  rent  as  possible  out  of  the  occu- 
piers of  dwelHng-houses.  Here  we  may  indeed  say 
that  fresh  air  and  sunshine  are  charged  for,  and  that 
the  charge  is  a  heavy  one.  I  take  the  following 
particulars  from  that  useful  Httle  pubUcation,  the 
"Daily  Mail  Yearbook"  for  1907:  — 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     1 85 


"The  300,000  London  'one-room'  dwellers  recorded  in  the 
last  Census  returns  may  have  diminished  in  numbers,  but  it 
is  doubtful  whether  any  great  reduction  has  been  secured. 
It  is  true  that  a  number  of  empty  houses  are  to  be  found  in 
several  districts,  but  this  means  that  in  many  cases  unem- 
ployed workmen  have  taken  their  families  to  share  the  homes 
of  relatives,  thus  actually  increasing  the  amount  of  over- 
crowding. 

"The  Census  figures  of  1901  showed  that  in  the  town 
groups  of  Scotland  there  were  not  less  than  a  million  over- 
crowded one-  and  two-room  dwellers,  and  the  figures  are  so 
striking  that  they  deserve  to  be  recorded  here.  In  the  Scotch 
towns  there  are  135,864  families  living  in  one-room  homes, 
and,  taking  as  the  standard  of  overcrowding  the  presence  of 
more  than  two  persons  to  one  room,  there  are  — 

74,832  overcrowded  persons  living  3  to  i  room. 

71,880 


60,235 
40,272 
24,269 
12,512 

4,752 
1,940 

595 
228 


5 
6 

7 
8 

9 

10 

II 

12 

(or  more) 

or  a  total  of  291,515  overcrowded  one-room  dwellers  in  the 
town  groups  of  Scotland. 

"There  are  280,447  families  living  in  two-room  homes  in 
the  Scotch  towns,  and,  taking  the  presence  of  five  persons  to 
two  rooms  as  constituting  overcrowding,  these  figures  show 
that  there  are  — 

205,665  overcrowded  persons  living   5  to  2  rooms. 
202,096  "  "  "      6  " 

178,045  "  "  "      7 


1 86       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 
133,352  overcrowded  persons  living  8  to  2  rooms. 


86,445 

it 

u 

u 

9 

(( 

46,740 

tt 

u 

(( 

10 

(( 

20,273 

ti 

IC 

(( 

II 

it 

10,476 

u 

tt 

« 

12 

u 

(or  more) 

or  a  total  of  883,094  overcrowded  two-room  dwellers  in  the 
Scottish  towns. 

"The  rural  housing  problem  still  remains  to  perplex  us, 
despite  the  laudable  attempt  to  devise  the  £150  cottage.  In 
scores  of  English  villages  labourers  are  living  in  houses 
which  are  little  better  than  worn-out  shells,  and  the  desire 
to  build  new  and  sanitary  houses  seems  lacking  in  landowners 
and  farmers  alike." 

To  what  is  this  all  due?  To  landlordism. 
This  statement  may  instantly  be  challenged,  and 
fifty  other  contributory  causes  pointed  out,  but  it 
is  irrefutable.  It  is  private  property  in  land  that 
is  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  If  the  land  belonged 
to  the  State,  and  were  administered  for  the  benefit 
of  the  public,  and  not  for  private  gain  merely, 
slums  and  overcrowding  would  be  impossible. 
Overcrowding  is  caused  by  high  rents;  high  rents 
are  the  fruit  of  competition  for  dwelUngs  near 
the  centres  of  employment;  landlordism,  as  in 
the  days  of  Joseph,  takes  advantage  of  the  people's 
need,  and  scoops  off  all  the  available  gains  of 
labour  in  the  shape  of  rent.  The  rent  paid  to 
the  landlord  is  simply  labour  handing  over  as 
much  of  its  produce  as  can  be  spared  for  per- 
mission to  live  in  a  shelter  which  belongs  to  some 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     1 87 

one  else.  The  conditions  of  modern  industrialism 
are  such  that  the  workers  have  to  be  gathered 
around  the  machine;  hence  vast  centres  of  popu- 
lation; hence,  too,  the  opportunity  of  the  land- 
lord. When  land  in  the  heart  of  London  mounts 
up  to  as  much  as  $5,000,000  per  acre,  it  is  clear 
that  the  aggregation  of  producing  units  in  one 
spot  is  making  a  considerable  profit  for  somebody. 
What  becomes  of  rent  ?  —  What  becomes  of  the 
profit  which  is  thus  skimmed  off  in  rent?  Where 
does  it  go  to?  The  $1,500,000,000  a  year  which  is 
carried  off  in  this  fashion  represents  a  vast  amount 
of  skill  and  energy  which  is  being  employed  in 
producing  something;  what  does  it  produce? 
Now  here  is  something  for  the  thoughtful  reader 
to  ponder.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  the 
expenditure  of  the  rich  finds  employment  for  the 
poor,  and  the  man  who  flings  money  about  in  a 
lavish  manner  in  the  gratification  of  his  whims  is 
therefore,  as  a  rule,  exceedingly  popular.  I  can 
well  remember  in  my  Oxford  days  the  way  in  which 
the  townspeople  cheered  a  set  of  sporting  under- 
graduates who  were  being  sent  down  by  their  college 
authorities  for  having  given  too  violent  expression 
to  their  animal  spirits;  the  crowd  hooted  the  dons 
vigorously,  and  loudly  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  expulsion  of  these  young  gentlemen  was  bad 
for  trade.  Their  fixed  idea,  of  course,  was  that  the 
unproductive  expenditure  of  one  portion  of  the 
community  was  good  for  all  the  rest,  because  it 


1 88       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE    SOCIAL   ORDER 

kept  people  at  work  providing  luxuries.  The 
same  conviction  is  stubbornly  held  by  all  the  poor 
who  obtain  their  livelihood  by  catering  for  wealthy 
patrons.  When  the  Armageddon  of  Socialism 
versus  Private  Property  really  arrives,  it  will  be 
this  class  which  will  fight  the  battle  of  the  rich, 
and  die  in  the  last  ditch,  metaphorically  speaking, 
in  defence  of  privilege  and  injustice.  It  was  just 
the  same  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  generous 
loyalist  sentiment  threw  simple-hearted  Englishmen 
on  the  side  of  autocracy  in  the  struggle  between 
King  and  Parliament.  But  what  are  the  facts? 
Is  it  really  true  that  money  expended  on  luxury 
benefits  the  workers?  No,  it  is  not  true;  it  is  the 
exact  reverse  of  the  truth.  It  may  benefit  a  par- 
ticular class  of  worker  for  the  time  being,  but  it 
injures  the  community  as  a  whole.  In  saying  this, 
I  do  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  a  measure  of  what 
is  called  luxury  ought  to  be  possible,  and  could  be 
possible,  for  all;  what  I  am  contending  for  is  that 
the  luxury  of  the  few  is  a  wrong  done  to  the  many, 
and  the  truth  of  this  statement  will  be  evident  to 
any  one  who  asks  himself  what  might  have  been 
done  with  the  skill  and  energy  represented  in  the 
making  of  luxury.  $1,500,000,000  annually,  re- 
member, paid  away  as  the  rental  of  natural  resources, 
only  means  that  the  owners  of  those  resources  have 
power  to  say  to  labour,  **  Instead  of  growing  corn 
make  jewellery;  instead  of  boots  and  shoes  make 
silk    dresses;     instead    of    houses    for    yourselves. 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES      1 89 

build  mansions  for  us."  These  are  just  the  naked 
facts  of  the  case,  and  there  is  no  more  gainsaying 
them  than  denying  that  two  and  two  make  four. 
Money  paid  as  rent,  or  anything  else,  only  repre- 
sents power  to  command  labour,  and  to  tell  it  what 
to  do;  all  the  labour  employed  in  furnishing  the 
means  of  luxury  is  so  much  labour  withdrawn  from 
the  production  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  Mind, 
I  am  not  objecting  to  luxury  as  such,  —  although 
some  philosophers  might,  —  what  I  am  pointing 
out  is  that  the  luxury  of  a  section  inevitably  means 
the  impoverishment  of  another  section,  so  long  as 
there  is  not  luxury  enough  to  go  round.  I  do  not 
say  that  all  the  $1,500,000,000  paid  as  rent  is  spent 
in  luxury;  but  I  do  say,  and  no  one  can  disprove 
the  assertion,  that  every  person  supported  in  idle- 
ness by  means  of  that  money,  and  every  person 
who  spends  any  of  it  in  the  gratification  of  luxurious 
tastes,  is  compelling  labour  to  produce  for  him  with- 
out any  adequate  return,  and  diverting  labour  from 
other  channels  where  it  might  be  more  usefully  em- 
ployed. It  may  be  pointed  out  that  there  is  no 
guarantee  that  such  labour  could  find  employment 
elsewhere  at  all.  I  quite  agree,  and  the  reason 
strengthens  my  argument;  it  is  that  the  natural 
resources  of  this  country  are  privately  owned  and 
,used  for  the  benefit  of  a  limited  class,  instead  of 
[for  the  whole  community.  Unemployment  is  caused 
lainly  by  two  things  —  the  comparative  inaccessi- 
[bility  of  the  natural  resources  which  should  belong 


1 90       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

to  all,  and  the  comparative  absence  of  anything  like 
a  national  regulation  of  the  ways  in  which  the  skill 
and  energy  of  labour  shall  be  employed. 

How  to  obtain  communal  possession  of  natural 
resources.  —  How  is  all  this  to  be  remedied  ?  How 
is  the  nation  to  be  put  in  possession  of  its  rightful 
heritage?  Here  let  me  pause  to  say  that  in  point- 
ing out  how  things  are  at  present,  and  how  cruelly 
they  bear  upon  the  millions  who  have  thus  been 
disinherited,  I  have  no  intention  of  railing  against 
the  owners  of  landed  property  or  the  many  who 
live  by  rent  and  interest.  Neither  do  I  intend  to 
inveigh  against  those  who  find  themselves  in  cir- 
cumstances which  involve  a  large  expenditure  on 
what  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  poor  would  be 
termed  luxury.  If  all  this  privileged  class  were 
to  give  up  its  possessions  and  go  out  into  the  wilder- 
ness to-morrow  it  would  not  alter  things  for  the 
better;  it  might  indeed  make  confusion  worse 
confounded.  It  is  the  system,  not  the  beneficiaries, 
that  is  to  blame.  Every  day  more  and  more  of 
the  individuals  composing  the  privileged  minority 
of  the  nation  are  beginning  to  question  whether  the 
system  which  puts  such  a  barrier  between  them 
and  their  fellows  is  morally  justifiable.  No  harder 
workers  in  the  public  service  are  to  be  found  than 
amongst  this  very  class.  It  would  be  unreasonable 
to  demand  of  the  heir  to  ancestral  domains  that  he 
should  step  out  of  them  and  let  them  slide  into  other 
private  hands  which  may  make  a  less  worthy  use 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES      I9I 

of  them  than  he.  It  would  be  still  more  un- 
reasonable to  ask  of  the  man  who  has  invested 
his  small  savings  in  house  property  for  the  sake 
of  his  wife  and  children  that  he  should  refuse  to 
accept  a  penny  in  rent  or  should  hand  them  over 
to  the  public  authority  without  compensation; 
he  might  find  himself  in  the  workhouse  if  he  did 
so  by  the  time  old  age  came,  and  he  would  not  have 
made  landlordism  one  whit  less  strong  than  it  is 
now.  Even  the  millionaire  with  a  taste  for  steam 
yachts  might  inflict  hardship  on  the  workers  who 
have  been  trained  to  build  yachts  if  he  suddenly 
determined  to  employ  his  rents  in  directing 
labour  into  some  other  channel.  Every  such 
sharp  transition  involves  suffering  to  some  one. 
It  would  be  mightily  unjust,  too,  for  the  nation 
to  say  to  the  owners  of  natural  resources,  "These 
are  not  yours  any  more  than  your  neighbour's; 
they  belong  to  society,  and  we  shall  therefore 
resume  possession  of  them  at  once."  The  up- 
rooting would  be  terrible,  and  the  general  dislo- 
cation of  trade  and  manufacture  would  result  in 
chaos  and  throw  civilization  back  for  a  good 
while.  No  sensible  man  would  advocate  such 
heroic  measures;  abstract  justice  of  this  kind 
would  mean  concrete  injustice  and  untold  suffer- 
ing to  thousands  of  innocent  people  who  are  no 
more  responsible  for  the  present  system  than  the 
cogs  in  an  engine  wheel  are  responsible  for  the 
machinery  that  drives  it. 


192       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

But  there  is  a  better  way  of  doing  things, 
once  our  eyes  are  open  to  the  end  to  be  achieved. 
The  nation  could  resume  its  own,  bit  by  bit,  by 
buying  out  the  monopolists,  and  it  could  be  done 
without  injuring  anybody.  This  may  seem  like 
robbing  Peter  to  pay  Paul,  but  it  is  not  really  so. 
Some  may  consider  that  it  would  fail  of  its  object 
because  it  would  substitute  hard  cash  for  the 
ownership  of  soil,  and  therefore  enable  the 
monopolist  to  remain  as  much  a  monopolist  as 
ever.  Besides,  it  might  be  a  dear  bargain;  such 
compensation  would  tend  to  become  excessive  in 
amount,  and  the  payment  of  it  would  place  a 
burden  on  our  backs  compared  with  which  the 
existing  National  Debt  would  be  a  small  matter. 
I  admit  all  this  up  to  a  point,  but  beyond  that 
point  the  objection  breaks  down.  It  is  true  that 
the  hard  cash  would  mean,  just  as  rent  does  now, 
the  power  to  command  labour;  but  then  there 
would  he  no  more  rent  except  to  the  State.  That 
is  just  the  point.  Henceforth  the  nation  would  be 
in  possession  of  the  natural  resources  whence  all 
wealth  is  derived,  and  could  develop  those  natural 
resources  as  it  pleased.  The  possessor  of  hard  cash 
could  go  on  for  a  time  dictating  to  some  extent 
the  way  in  which  labour  should  be  employed  in 
developing  those  resources,  but  his  power  of  doing 
so  would  become  less  and  less  in  proportion  as  the 
national  organisation  of  industry  became  an  ac- 
complished  fact.    In   the   succeeding  chapter   we 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES      1 93 

shall  see  what  this  organisation  of  industry  involves. 
Finally  the  purchasing  power  of  money  in  the  hands 
of  a  private  individual  would  disappear  altogether; 
for  in  getting  hold  of  the  natural  resources  and 
directing  the  way  in  which  labour  is  to  be  employed 
upon  them,  the  nation  would  have  full  control  of  all 
the  wealth  that  could  possibly  be  produced.  Money 
would  then  represent  nothing;  at  present  it  repre- 
sents the  power  to  command  labour,  just  because  the 
sources  of  wealth  are  privately  owned.  When  the 
sources  of  wealth  are  communally  owned,  every 
member  of  the  community  will  be  accounted  a  share- 
holder, and  his  share  of  the  general  produce  will 
be  secured  to  him.  What  will  money  in  private 
hands  be  able  to  do  then?  Nothing  whatever. 
It  would  have  no  power  even  now  but  for  the  fact 
that  no  man  is  sure  of  his  portion  of  the  wealth 
annually  produced;  the  power  of  money  is  ultimately 
the  power  to  take  advantage  of  somebody's  necessity. 
But  under  a  system  in  which  the  community  would 
be  the  sole  employer,  or  at  any  rate  could  offer  em- 
ployment on  terms  with  which  no  individual  could 
compete,  the  mere  possession  of  a  long  banking 
account  would  count  for  nothing  so  far  as  power 
over  one's  fellows  was  concerned.  And  even  so 
far  as  one's  power  over  commodities  was  concerned 
the  case  would  not  be  very  different.  For  a  time  the 
heirs  of  the  dispossessed  land-owners  could  use  their 
bank  notes  as  claims  on  the  common  store  without 
having  to  do  anything  for  it,  and  the  amount  they 


194       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

could  take  in  this  way  might  indeed  be  a  Benjamin's 
mess.  But  this  power  would  not  last  long  either; 
several  things  would  be  ceaselessly  working  against 
it.  The  first  would  be  the  fact  that  with  increasing 
communal  prosperity  the  desirable  things  which  are 
now  attainable  only  by  the  few  would  be  accessible 
to  all;  there  would  be  comparatively  little  within 
the  reach  of  the  rich  man  at  present  which  would 
not  come  within  the  reach  of  the  average  citizen  too. 
A  concomitant  of  this  fact  would  be  the  disinclina- 
tion of  individuals  to  render  menial  service  to  other 
individuals,  and  this  would  automatically  cause  a 
great  deal  to  happen.  If  the  service  of  the  pubHc 
were  considered  more  dignified  than  ministering 
to  private  luxury,  as  would  certainly  be  the  case, 
where  would  the  rich  man's  staff  come  from?  A 
constantly  increasing  proportion  of  his  claim  against 
the  State  would  have  to  go  in  bribing  servants  to 
stay  with  him  and  minister  to  his  pleasures.  Where 
would  be  his  grooms,  chauffeurs,  valets,  masseurs, 
footmen,  butlers,  yatchsmen?  All  these  would  be 
finding  new  occupations,  or  rather,  their  children 
would  be  trained  to  serve  the  pubUc  —  even,  perhaps, 
in  ministering  to  its  pleasures  —  and  would  not  care 
for  the  rich  man's  service  unless  they  were  paid  far 
more  highly  than  at  present  they  ever  dream  of. 
This  would  mean  a  gradual  lessening  of  the  number 
of  expensive  establishments,  and  a  coming  to  depend 
more  and  more  on  the  advantages  of  pubHc  instead 
of  private  service.    A  third  influence  in  the  same 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     1 95 

direction  would  be  the  pressure  of  public  opinion.  In 
time  it  would  come  to  be  considered  disreputable 
that  any  man  should  want  to  be  waited  on  and 
catered  for  in  the  old  familiar  way.  It  would  be 
thought  effeminate  —  an  unfair  use  of  a  word  re- 
flecting on  the  female  sex,  but  we  have  no  other 
which  exactly  expresses  the  same  meaning  —  and 
selfish.  One  by  one  the  children  who  were  born  to 
the  claim,  but  who  had  never  known  the  old  system 
of  private  property  out  of  which  it  arose,  would  want 
to  take  their  place  in  the  communal  system  and  earn 
their  share  of  the  national  wealth  like  other  people. 
The  few  who  were  not  amenable  to  such  self-re- 
specting considerations  would  be  dealt  with  by  the 
fixing  of  a  time  limit  to  their  special  privilege. 
Their  nominal  capital  would  be  converted  into  a 
gradually  decreasing  pension  —  that  is,  a  smaller 
and  smaller  share  of  the  total  annual  produce  — 
until  at  length  the  whole  of  the  material  wealth  of 
the  country  would  be  completely  socialised.  In 
making  this  forecast  I  am  trenching  a  little  upon  the 
subject-matter  of  the  remaining  chapters,  but  the 
outline  statement  is  necessary  in  order  to  show  how 
the  present  legal  owners  of  the  natural  resources  of 
this  country  could  gradually  be  expropriated  with 
the  least  possible  friction  and  individual  hardship. 
I  have  taken  for  granted  that  the  nation  would  be 
the  economic  unit,  because  in  all  probability  na- 
tional Socialism  will  long  antedate  international 
brotherhood,  and  is  the  practical  objective  at  present. 


196       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

But  there  is  no  reason  why  in  generations  to  come 
civilisation  itself  should  not  be  the  unit;  and  in  fact 
with  every  advance  of  the  social  consciousness  in  any 
civilised  community  we  may  expect  a  commensurate 
advance  in  the  desire  for  international  fellowship. 

The  gradual  development  of  communal  ownership 
along  with  the  ability  to  use  it.  —  But,  as  I  have  said, 
the  process  by  which  the  nation  acquired  unhindered 
possession  of  its  own  natural  resources  would  have 
to  be  very  gradual.  If  it  were  otherwise  we  should 
check  the  flow  of  production.  It  would  be  of  no  use 
taking  over  all  the  agricultural  lands,  for  instance, 
unless  we  had  all  the  administrative  machinery 
ready  for  developing  them  to  the  fullest  advantage. 
At  present,  in  spite  of  agricultural  depression, 
farming  remains  our  most  important  national  in- 
dustry; there  is  no  other  single  industry  to  compare 
with  it.  What  should  we  do  if  all  the  responsibility 
for  the  management  of  this  industry  were  thrown 
on  our  hands  to-morrow  without  any  trained  body 
of  experts  to  deal  with  it,  and  compensation  to  pay 
to  the  landlords?  The  immediate  consequence 
would  be  a  great  outcry  that  the  country  was  worse 
off  than  ever  it  had  been  under  private  ownership. 
No,  let  us  get  into  harness  by  degrees.  To  begin 
with,  it  would  be  better  that  the  locaUties  should 
acquire  the  soil  rather  than  that  the  State  should 
do  it  directly.  If,  through  lack  of  pubHc  spirit, 
any  locality  were  backward  in  the  matter,  the  State 
could  step  in,  but  only  after  communal  farming  in 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   NATURAL   RESOURCES     197 

Other  districts  had  been  proved  a  success.  One 
thing  should  be  made  absolute :  No  land  once  pub- 
licly owned  should  ever  be  permitted  to  pass  into 
private  hands  again.  Hence  everything  in  the  direc- 
tion of  peasant  proprietorship  should  be  strongly 
resisted  in  the  present,  and  strictly  forbidden  in  the 
future;  the  national  patrimony  must  never  be 
alienated  even  to  the  actual  cultivators.  Besides, 
it  is  being  abundantly  proved  that  co-operative 
farming  —  especially  with  small  farms  —  is  more 
remunerative  than  individual  farming.  It  is  this, 
perhaps  more  than  anything  else,  that  is  placing 
the  British  farmer  at  a  disadvantage  in  comparison 
with  his  foreign  competitor.  On  the  Continent, 
but  especially  in  Denmark,  the  institution  of  the 
co-operative  system  has  resulted  in  a  saving  of 
labour  and  an  increase  of  output  which  we  in  this 
country  have  not  even  approached.  This  has  been 
strikingly  brought  home  to  me  during  the  present 
year.  I  am  a  farmer  in  a  small  way  myself  —  a  typi- 
cally bad  one  —  but  I  felt  curious  to  know  how  it  was 
that  Denmark  could  supply  my  own  township  with 
butter  and  eggs  —  not  to  speak  of  bulbs  and  garden 
produce  generally  —  cheaper  than  I  could  do  it  on 
the  spot.  I  learn  that  the  explanation  is  chiefly 
to  be  found  in  the  high  state  of  efficiency  to  which 
the  co-operative  method  has  been  developed  under 
the  guidance  of  the  State  in  that  little  country. 
The  Danes  have  a  cheaper  system  of  transport,  and 
a  good  organisation  both  for  co-operative  purchase 


IqS       CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

and  sale.  What  is  wanted  in  this  country,  side  by 
side  with  the  gradual  extinction  of  landlordism, 
is  the  gradual  extension  of  the  co-operative  system 
to  agriculture,  under  communal  control.  The  size  of 
the  farms  should  be  regulated  by  the  local  authori- 
ties in  accordance  with  experience  of  local  needs. 
Agriculture  is  a  science,  and  should  be  taught  as 
such  to  every  aspirant  for  this  kind  of  employment. 
In  time  to  come  the  State  farmer  will  be  a  thoroughly 
efiScient  public  servant,  whose  interests  are  those 
of  the  community,  and  can  never  be  separated 
therefrom. 

The  amotint  of  compensation.  —  As  to  the  price 
to  be  paid  as  compensation  to  the  landlords,  there 
is  not  much  to  be  said.  The  matter  is  easily  arrived 
at.  Granted  that  the  power  of  compulsory  purchase 
were  universal,  and  liable  to  be  exercised  at  any 
time  on  the  basis  of  the  rating  value,  there  would 
be  little  opportunity  for  deception  or  for  exacting 
an  excessive  price  from  the  public  purchaser.  It 
would  be  to  the  interest  of  the  owner  to  keep  the 
rating  value  as  low  as  possible  and  the  selling  value 
as  high  as  possible.  The  two  tendencies  would 
regulate  each  other,  and  we  should  arrive  auto- 
matically at  something  hke  a  fair  figure.  These, 
however,  are  matters  of  expediency,  and  in  the 
present  work  I  am  concerned  not  with  expediency, 
but  with  principles.  I  only  mention  them  to  show 
what  is  practicable. 

Housing.  —  So  far  as  housing  is  concerned,  some- 


THE  SOCTALISING  OF  NATURAL  RESOURCES     1 99 

thing  more  is  needed  besides  getting  hold  of  the 
land.  It  would  be  well  to  leave  the  land  in  its 
present  ownership  in  some  cases  where  population 
is  congested,  and  put  in  force  the  sanitary  regula- 
tions which  already  exist.  If  at  the  same  time 
garden  cities  were  established,  and  communally 
owned  and  administered,  in  all  the  outlying  districts 
of  our  great  centres  of  population;  and  if  transit 
were  cheapened  by  a  system  of  public  bounties  on 
condition  that  railways  and  tramways  became  pub- 
lic property  within  a  certain  specified  period,  the 
value  of  what  is  at  present  slum  property  would 
speedily  fall,  and  the  landlords  could  be  bought  out 
more  cheaply  than  would  otherwise  be  the  case. 

The  fundamental  of  the  argument.  —  But,  apart 
from  all  considerations  of  ways  and  means,  my 
object  in  writing  this  chapter  has  been  to  establish 
one  broad  principle,  namely,  that  as  there  is  no 
wealth  but  what  comes  out  of  the  natural  resources 
of  any  country,  those  natural  resources  belong  by 
right  to  the  people  who  live  in  the  country.  All 
those  people  are  living  by  those  natural  resources 
even  now,  but  their  access  to  them  is  hampered  and 
hindered  by  private  ownership.  Moreover,  if  civil- 
ised life  is  only  possible  by  combination  of  effort 
and  specialisation  of  function,  private  ownership  in 
the  means  of  production  is  incompatible  with  the 
free  development  of  such  life;  for  perfect  co-opera- 
tion in  effort  is  impossible  without  the  common 
ownership  of  the  objects  upon  which  labour  is  to 


200      CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

be  exercised.  I  assert,  therefore,  that  private  prop- 
erty in  natural  resources  is  unjust,  and  a  serious 
practical  hindrance  to  the  realisation  of  the  highest 
kind  of  life  for  the  community  at  large.  I  assert 
also  that  it  is  possible  to  put  an  end  to  this  in- 
justice without  harming  any  one  in  the  process,  and 
that  it  is  meet,  right,  and  our  bounden  duty  so  to  do. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   SOCIALISING  OF  INDUSTRY 

Capital  cannot  be  separated  from  natural  resources. 
—  We  come  now  to  a  phase  of  our  subject  in  which 
the  practical  difficulties  appear  to  be  greater  and 
the  issues  involved  more  complex  than  in  that 
which  we  have  just  treated.  It  is  this  feeling,  no 
doubt,  which,  more  than  anything  else,  has  led  the 
followers  of  Mr.  Henry  George  to  confine  their 
exertions  to  persuading  the  public  of  the  advan- 
tages of  nationalising  the  land  altogether  apart  from 
the  question  of  nationalising  industrial  capital. 
Many  of  them  maintain,  indeed,  that  the  latter  is 
neither  desirable  nor  possible.  But,  as  I  now  hope 
to  show,  there  is  no  distinction  in  principle  between 
the  one  proposal  and  the  other,  and  if  the  former  is 
practicable  the  same  can  be  said  of  the  latter.  In 
treating  the  question  of  the  socialising  of  natural 
resources  apart  from  that  of  the  socialising  of  in- 
dustry I  have  only  done  so  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience and  clearness,  and  not  because  natural 
resources  are  essentially  different  from  any  other 
kind  of  capital.  Natural  resources  are  the  potential 
wealth  of  the  community;  capital,  commonly  so 
called,  is  only  that  portion  of  those  same  natural 
resources  upon  which  labour  has  been  exercised  with 

20I 


202       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

the  object  of  turning  it  into  an  instrument  of  further 
production.  Thus  a  sewing  machine  is  composed  of 
iron  which  has  been  dug  out  of  the  ground,  and 
wood  which  has  been  brought  out  of  the  forest,  the 
only  difference  between  the  natural  resources  (iron 
and  wood),  in  their  former  as  compared  with  their 
present  state,  being  that  labour  has  modified  and 
combined  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  of  them  a 
labour-saving  device  which  will  increase  the  output 
of  wealth.  This  should  be  so  obvious  as  to  need 
no  further  demonstration.  All  industrial  capital  of 
whatever  kind  —  plant,  electric,  or  water  power, 
etc.  —  consists  only  of  natural  resources  so  manipu- 
lated as  to  assist  labour  in  the  task  of  extracting 
from  the  same  store  of  natural  resources  wealth 
which  will  be  used  for  purposes  of  consumption. 
It  is  thus  a  misdescription  to  speak  of  capital  as 
the  result  of  saving  or  keeping  back  a  portion  of 
one  year's  wealth  in  order  to  increase  the  output  in 
the  next;  it  is  only  to  a  very  small  extent  that  the 
acquirement  of  capital  can  be  said  to  begin  in  this 
way;  it  begins  with  the  ownership  of  natural  re- 
sources, and  continues  with  the  acquisition  of  the 
power  to  direct  the  way  in  which  labour  shall  be 
employed  upon  those  resources.  It  is  even  diflScult 
to  draw  any  practical  distinction  between  the  wealth 
which  is  employed  for  purposes  of  production  and 
that  which  is  purely  for  consumption.  It  may  fairly 
be  said  that  a  man's  food  and  clothing  are  capital, 
for  they  are  necessary  to  his  efficiency  in  the  work 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   INDUSTRY  203 

of  production.  This,  however,  is  to  carry  distinc- 
tions rather  far.  For  all  practical  purposes  we  may 
define  capital  as  natural  resources  plus  what  labour 
has  done  in  fitting  those  natural  resources  to  con- 
tribute directly  to  the  production  of  the  useful  and 
desirable  things  which  are  usually  designated  as 
wealth.  We  all  have  a  fairly  accurate  general  idea 
as  to  the  kind  of  things  which  are  included  under 
this  head. 

The  consideration  of  this  point  plunges  us  at  once 
into  the  highly  complex  problems  associated  with 
modern  industriaUsm  in  its  various  aspects,  and 
unless  we  limit  our  field  we  shall  be  in  danger  of 
losing  ourselves  in  the  very  vastness  of  the  theme. 
Our  best  method  will  be  to  adhere  closely  to  the 
principle  enunciated  in  the  preceding  chapter,  and 
reaUse  that,  in  spite  of  the  greater  complexity  of  its 
apphcations  to  industrialism,  it  is  one  and  the  same 
principle  all  through.  If  it  be  right  and  just  to 
socialise  the  natural  means  of  production,  it  is  right 
and  just  to  socialise  the  artificial  means  too;  if  it 
be  right  and  just  to  sociahse  that  by  which  the 
community  lives,  it  is  right  and  just  to  sociahse  the 
use  which  labour  makes  of  it.  If  it  be  wrong  and 
unjust  for  one  portion  of  the  community  to  appro- 
priate and  administer  for  its  own  benefit  the  natural 
resources  by  which  all  the  rest  have  to  exist,  it  is 
wrong  and  unjust  to  exploit  the  labour  employed 
upon  those  resources.  This  is  practically  the  whole 
case  for  the  sociaUsing  of  industry. 


204       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

The  law  of  rent  applies  to  all  production.  —  For 

how  are  things  organised  at  present?  We  have 
already  seen  in  a  preceding  chapter  that  the  nation's 
annual  income  is  about  $9,000,000,000.  Of  this 
amount  about  $3,250,000,000  goes  in  rent  and  in- 
terest, in  addition  to  a  sum  of  $2,300,000,000  in 
"  wages  of  superintendence."  The  amount  left  for 
the  workers  who  actually  produce  the  wealth  is 
therefore  about  $3,450,000,000.  This  means  that 
about  one-third  of  the  total  annual  output  is  enjoyed 
by  the  workers  who  constitute  the  vast  majority  of 
the  population.  Roughly  speaking,  we  may  say 
that  three-fourths  of  the  population  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  sharing  one- third  of  the  income,  while  the 
remaining  one-fourth  takes  two-thirds.  The  reason 
for  this  glaring  maladjustment  is  the  operation  of 
the  law  of  rent,  as  it  is  called,  which  applies  with 
equal  force  to  the  gathering  of  interest.  Rent  is 
calculated  as  the  profit  which  accrues  over  and 
above  the  cost  of  cultivating  the  least  desirable  land 
in  the  community.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
land  has  no  value  except  as  labour  can  be  employed 
upon  it  with  the  object  of  producing  desirable  things. 
The  only  apparent  exception  to  this  rule  is  where 
land  is  allowed  to  lie  idle  for  the  sake  of  present 
enjoyment  or  future  profit.  But  this  apparent  ex- 
ception is  no  exception.  What  the  land  is  worth  is 
measured  by  the  effective  demand  for  it,  which, 
again,  is  regulated  by  what  it  can  yield  to  the  com- 
munity as  the  result  of  labour.    This  law  holds  just 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   INDUSTRY  20$ 

as  good  in  the  case  of  manufactures  as  in  that  of 
agriculture  or  housing,  and  interest  can  be  calcu- 
lated in  the  same  way  as  ordinary  rent,  for,  after 
all,  manufacturing  is  only  one  way  of  employing  the 
natural  resources  of  the  earth.  But  no  labour  will 
be  employed  unless  the  land  will  support  labour. 
Some  land  will  do  this,  and  very  little  more,  whereas 
other  districts  will  produce  abundantly.  The  Lan- 
cashire coal  fields  are  more  valuable  than  the  Essex 
marshes,  because  of  the  productive  power  they 
possess.  Now,  whatever  this  total  output  may  be, 
over  and  above  the  bare  cost  of  the  labour  em- 
ployed in  producing  it,  is  rent,  interest,  profit  — 
call  it  what  you  like.  Who  gets  this  profit?  Who 
but  the  owners  of  the  soil  and  the  whole  class  they 
represent?  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  If  their 
right  to  the  control  of  land  and  capital  —  different 
names  for  the  same  thing,  as  we  have  just  seen  — 
be  conceded,  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  They  can 
dictate  the  terms  on  which  labour  shall  be  em- 
ployed, and  they  will  be  certain  to  retain  for  them- 
selves just  as  much  of  the  profit  as  will  remain  after 
the  wants  of  labour  have  been  satisfied,  and  those 
wants  will  be  sure  to  be  regulated  by  the  least  that 
will  maintain  the  labour  at  command  on  the  least 
productive  part  of  the  natural  resources  of  the 
community. 

How  it  operates.  — The  way  in  which  this  law 
works  out  is  clearly  seen  from  the  condition  of  the 
industrial  world  to-day.    It  may  readily  be  con- 


206       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

ceded  that  we  are  no  worse  off  than  our  fathers 
were,  but  it  is  practically  certain  that  the  poorest 
classes  in  the  community  to-day  are  no  better  off 
than  in  any  previous  age.  For  this  iron  law  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking  prevents  any  perma- 
nent improvement  without  the  deliberate  and 
sustained  concerted  action  of  the  community  at 
large.  There  is  a  clear  line  of  division  between 
the  "  haves  "  and  the  "  have-nots,"  that  is,  between 
the  people  who  own  the  soil  and  the  people  who 
do  not.  No  increase  in  output  will  of  itself  improve 
the  condition  of  the  worker,  for  it  only  means  a 
larger  rent  or  interest  to  the  owners  of  the  sources 
of  production;  the  remuneration  of  labour  will 
still  continue  to  be  calculated  on  the  cost  of  culti- 
vating the  least  desirable  of  these  sources  of  pro- 
duction. How  true  this  is  can  be  seen  from  an 
examination  of  the  condition  of  unprotected 
labour  even  at  the  present  time.  It  accounts  for 
the  sweater.  It  does  not  matter  how  large  may 
be  the  selling  price  of  an  overcoat^  for  instance, 
if  it  be  produced  by  sweated  labour;  the  maker 
will  only  get  the  least  that  will  suffice  to  make 
the  production  of  the  coat  possible  at  all.  Once 
this  principle  is  clearly  seen  it  will  be  recognised 
as  sufficient  to  account  for  the  enormous  in- 
equalities of  our  present  social  system.  Since 
the  outburst  of  productive  activity  which  followed 
the  invention  of  labour-saving  machinery  at  the 
close    of    the    eighteenth    century,    the    output  of 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   INDUSTRY  207 

wealth  per  head  in  this  country  annually  is  per- 
haps three  times  what  it  was  before  that  period; 
but  wages  have  not  increased  in  proportion,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  law  of  rent  is  always 
in  operation  to  keep  wages  down  to  the  bare 
margin  of  subsistence.  Of  course  a  great  deal 
has  been  done  to  raise  wages,  but  that  is  only 
because  labour  has  gradually  awakened  to  a 
recognition  of  its  own  interests,  and,  by  means 
of  Trade  Unions,  has  succeeded  in  obtaining  a 
gradually  increasing  share  of  the  prosperity  thus 
made  possible. 

Consequent  opposition  of  Capital  and  Labotir.  — 
We  thus  get  two  great  classes  in  any  modern  civil- 
ised country  —  the  wage-earners  and  the  wage- 
payers —  and  these  two  classes  must  stand  over 
against  each  other  as  long  as  our  present  system  of 
private  property  in  capital  continues.  Their  in- 
terests are  essentially  opposed,  for  every  abstraction 
from  the  remuneration  of  the  one  means  an 
increase  of  the  wealth  appropriated  by  the  other. 
And  the  gulf  between  them  tends  to  widen.  It 
is  becoming  more  and  more  difficult  every  year, 
as  the  organisation  of  industry  becomes  more 
and  more  complex,  for  a  man  to  be  able  to  force 
his  way  out  of  the  larger  and  poorer  class  into 
that  of  the  smaller  and  richer.  We  used  to  hear 
a  great  deal  about  the  desirability  of  cultivating 
the  qualities  —  such  as  thoroughness,  patience, 
perseverance,    and    honesty  —  which    would    avail 


208      CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

to  raise  a  man  in  the  scale  of  success;  but  we 
are  now  beginning  to  find  out  the  absurdity  of 
this  kind  of  talk.  The  wage-earner  may  have  all 
the  virtues  in  the  Christian  armoury,  but  so  far 
from  helping  him  into  the  ranks  of  employers  they 
are  more  likely  to  prove  a  hindrance  in  some  respects. 
The  admirable  apprentice  who  marries  his  master's 
daughter  is  not  to  be  found  now  outside  the  pages 
of  fiction  unless  some  lucky  chance  puts  fortune 
in  his  way.  How  in  the  world  is  he  going  to  get 
across  the  great  gulf  that  separates  the  owner  of 
capital  from  the  servant  of  capital?  There  is  no 
blinking  the  fact  that  our  industrial  system  as  we 
have  it  to-day  is  run  on  the  lines  of  a  modified 
slavery,  and  future  generations  will  wonder  that 
we  did  not  see  it,  just  as  we  now,  looking  back, 
marvel  at  the  equanimity  with  which  men  accepted 
the  hardships  of  feudahsm.  We  fondly  suppose 
that  the  ancient  feudal  maxim,  "  Every  man  must 
have  a  lord,"  has  passed  away  for  ever  except  in 
history  books.  The  name  may  have  done  so,  but 
the  thing  has  not.  It  still  remains  true  that  every 
man  must  have  a  lord  in  the  sense  that  every  worker 
must  have  an  employer.  The  only  freedom  he 
has  in  the  matter  is  freedom  to  choose  the  employer 
or  freedom  to  starve.  He  has  no  control  whatever 
over  the  management  of  the  business  in  which  he 
labours  to  produce  wealth  for  some  one  else  to 
administer  or  enjoy,  and  he  knows  right  well  that 
if  he  makes  any  fuss  about  it  he  will  have  to  go, 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   INDUSTRY  209 

and  that  is  just  what  he  dreads  the  most.  Capital 
has  the  power  to  give  or  withhold  the  right  of  access 
to  the  natural  resources  out  of  which  the  labourer's 
food  and  shelter  have  to  be  provided.  The  hours 
of  toil  may  be  long  and  uninteresting,  but  the  fear 
of  going  without  work  altogether  is  just  as  real 
as  the  fear  of  the  overseer's  lash  used  to  be  in  the 
days  of  "  slavery  "  when  slavery  was  not  ashamed 
of  its  name.  What  we  have  to-day  may  be  a  Httle 
better,  but  not  very  much;  and,  whether  we  use 
the  name  or  not,  it  still  contains  the  essentials  of 
slavery.  And  so  it  will  remain  until  we  have  democ- 
ratised industry  as  we  have  already  democratised 
our  more  purely  poUtical  institutions.  Our  indus- 
trial organisation  is  autocratic,  aristocratic,  bureau- 
cratic, but  it  is  not  democratic,  and  never  will  be 
until  the  power  of  capital  is  taken  out  of  the  hands 
of  a  small  class  and  vested  in  the  community  for 
the  benefit  of  all. 

Partial  remedies  for  evils  of  individualism,  i. 
Emigration.  —  A  good  many  people  are  constantly 
putting  forward  remedies  which  they  "suppose  would 
eUminate  the  evils  of  the  situation  without  changing 
the  economic  basis  of  society.  Thus  we  are  told 
repeatedly  that  this  old  country  is  overcrowded, 
and  that  the  young  life  should  seek  an  outlet  abroad, 
preferably  in  the  Colonies.  There  is  just  sufficient 
truth  in  this  suggestion  to  make  it  plausible.  Of 
course  it  is  true  that  the  natural  resources  of  a  new 
country   like   Canada    are    more    easily    accessible 


2IO       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

than  those  of  a  country  where  every  foot  of  ground 
has  aheady  been  appropriated,  and  therefore  for 
a  time  the  pressure  of  the  competitive  system  will 
not  be  so  keenly  felt  as  here.  Any  man  who  can 
have  land  for  the  asking  would  be  foohsh,  especially 
if  he  has  a  little  capital  to  enable  him  to  develop  it, 
to  remain  in  a  spot  where  he  is  more  or  less  at  the 
mercy  of  landlords  and  great  industrial  corpora- 
tions. He  may  even  be  surer  of  finding  employ- 
ment in  a  country  where  there  is  practically  no 
leisured  class  living  on  rent  and  interest,  but  only 
a  whole  community  striving  with  all  its  might  to 
develop  its  enormous  resources  of  natural  wealth. 
But  no  amount  of  emigration  will  really  solve  the 
problem  at  home,  for  the  conditions  are  always 
at  work  which  thrust  men  down  into  the  ranks  of 
the  poor  and  physically  inefficient.  The  law  of 
rent  under  private  ownership  is  only  one  of  these; 
but  it  is  sufficient  by  itself  to  produce  most  of  the 
ills  under  which  we  suffer;  for,  if  labour  is  unpro- 
tected, this  law  will  prevent  it  from  receiving  more 
than  what  the  worst  paid  labour  will  take.  It 
should  be  pointed  out  that,  after  all,  the  Trade 
Unions  have  only  as  yet  succeeded  in  organising 
the  aristocracy  of  labour,  so  to  speak.  All  the  rest 
is  subject  to  the  direful  operation  of  the  law  of 
rent  in  all  its  pitiless  force.  If  labour  will  take 
less  in  any  particular  kind  of  work  why  should 
capital  give  more?  Consequently  we  have  the 
gradual  lowering  of   the  standard  of  physical  effi- 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   INDUSTRY  211 

ciency  in  those  who  are  forced  below  the  level  of 
remuneration  which  would  keep  them  well  and 
strong.  The  same  law  drives  them  into  squalid 
dens  for  which  they  have  to  pay  more  than  they 
do  for  food  and  clothing,  and  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  evil  effects  of  the  conditions  thus  engen- 
dered. This  alone  would  in  time  produce  an  "  un- 
employable "  class  even  if  we  started  with  a  clean 
national  bill  of  health  to-morrow. 

2.  Temperance.  — Temperance  reformers  tell  us 
that  to  grapple  properly  with  the  drink  traffic  should 
suffice  to  cancel  the  worst  effects  of  evil  social 
conditions,  and  this  argument,  too,  carries  a  certain 
amount  of  force  when  we  realise  that  we  are  spend- 
ing $820,000,000  a  year  in  intoxicating  liquors, 
and  that  this  represents  an  appalling  harvest  of 
poverty,  vice,  and  crime,  especially  amongst  the 
poorer  classes.  But  I  think  it  could  be  shown 
conclusively  that  there  is  some  correspondence 
between  the  drinking  habits  of  the  poor  and  their 
narrow  and  uninteresting  life,  caused  by  the  opera- 
tion of  the  stern  law  we  have  been  examining. 
The  conditions  of  ordinary  labour  are  such  as  to 
make  toil  repellent,  and  its  remuneration  is  not 
enough  to  provide  the  wider  life  which  would  open 
up  higher  interests.  Ignorance  and  recklessness 
are  the  concomitants  of  a  lot  in  which  ambition  is 
useless  and  the  outlook  dreary  and  uninspiring. 
Excitement  has  to  be  sought  in  some  way,  and  the 
easiest  of  access  is  the  gin  palace.    This  is  a  subject 


212       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

which  we  must  mention  again  presently,  but  for 
the  moment  all  I  want  to  show  is  that  the  Drink 
Bill  is  partly  caused  by  the  conditions  we  are  dis- 
cussing, and  that  if  by  some  miracle  all  the  drinking 
saloons  could  be  swept  out  of  existence  forthwith 
the  conditions  which  make  poverty  would  still 
remain  as  flourishing  as  ever. 

3.  Education. — The  third  remedy  is  Education. 
But  our  administrators  are  beginning  to  find  out 
that  the  best  education  in  the  world  is  not  worth 
much  if  it  be  not  based  on  physical  efficiency. 
The  cruelty  of  forcing  half-starved  children  to  work 
for  hours  in  a  school  room  has  at  last  forced  itself 
upon  the  sluggish  intelligence  of  the  public,  and  we 
are  beginning  to  face  the  question  of  the  State 
feeding  of  the  pupils  attending  our  public  elementary 
schools.  But,  even  then,  environment  is  more 
powerful  than  precept.  The  child  who  lives  amid 
blows  and  curses  in  a  slum  is  more  likely  to  be 
influenced  by  that  atmosphere  than  by  his  daily 
visits  to  the  public  institution  where  his  mind  is 
supposed  to  be  trained.  Besides,  education  will 
not  give  him  work  when  he  grows  up;  at  the  best 
it  will  only  enable  him  to  see  a  little  more  clearly 
where  his  disabilities  spring  from. 

4.  Protection  and  Free  Trade.  — Then  we  have 
the  advocates  of  Protection  and  the  upholders  of 
doctrinaire  Free  Trade.  But  neither  of  these  ever 
attempt  to  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  Protec- 
tionist America  has  its  problem  of  poverty  just  as 


THE  SOCIALISING  OF  INDUSTRY  213 

we  have  it  here,  although  probably  not  quite  so 
conspicuously  because  of  the  vast  natural  resources 
which  still  remain  untouched.  But  Protectionist 
Germany  has  it  too,  notwithstanding  the  minute 
Government  regulations  which  make  vagrancy  diffi- 
cult. Go  where  you  like  under  modern  industrial- 
ism, and  you  meet  with  the  same  extremes  of  the 
small,  rich,  or  comfortable  class  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  large,  poor,  or  uncomfortable  class  on  the 
other.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  perfectly  socialised 
State  might  have  to  adopt  a  Protectionist  policy 
in  order  to  preserve  its  markets  from  the  influx  of 
goods  produced  under  conditions  with  which  equi- 
tably paid  home  labour  could  not  compete,  or  would 
not  wish  to  compete  at  the  expense  of  the  foreign 
labourer.  The  Socialist  is  not  so  enamoured  of 
the  present  results  of  half  a  century  of  free  imports 
in  Great  Britain  that  he  is  prepared  to  declare 
himself  a  Free  Trader  at  all  costs.  As  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain rightly  says,  the  producer  has  to  be  considered 
even  for  the  sake  of  the  consumer,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  foreign  tariffs  could  be  so  manipulated 
under  present  conditions  as  to  tempt  capital  away 
from  this  country  to  other  countries.  We  might 
thus  in  time  cease  to  be  a  producing  country,  and 
become  a  nation  composed  of  a  comparatively 
small  group  living  on  the  interest  of  capital  invested 
abpad  —  which  only  means  living  on  goods  im- 
ported from  abroad  —  with  a  large  servant  class 
supported    by    their    expenditure.    Experience    of 


214       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

pleasure  resorts,  where  most  of  the  resident  popula- 
tion lives  upon  the  expenditure  of  visitors,  does  not 
tend  to  make  us  welcome  such  a  prospect  on  a 
national  scale.  The  ideal  is,  of  course,  Free  Trade 
all  round,  and  the  encouragement  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  natural  resources  of  every  country  to 
the  highest  point  of  efficiency,  but  that  we  are  not 
likely  to  get  for  a  long  while  to  come.  The  Socialist 
need  not  object  to  Protection  as  a  practical  expedi- 
ent in  the  interests  of  labour,  but  he  objects  greatly 
to  laissez-faire  Free  Trade,  which  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  Individualism.  Neither  can  he  accept 
Mr.  Chamberlain's  proposals  as  a  panacea  for 
social  ills.  They  will  benefit  the  employer  class, 
and  that  only,  unless  the  present  economic  basis 
of  society  is  altered.  It  is  quite  indefensible  to  say 
that  our  advance  in  national  prosperity  has  been 
due  to  Free  Trade;  it  has  been  due  to  the  long  start 
which  England  obtained  in  manufacturing  industries, 
through  the  discovery  of  the  steam-engine  and  other 
appliances  for  increasing  man's  power  over  Nature. 
But  there  are  signs  that  our  lead  is  coming  to  an 
end.  In  not  a  few  cases  Mr.  Chamberlain's  conten- 
tions are  perfectly  justified,  in  that  a  certain  amount 
of  capital  has  already  been  transferred  from  Great 
Britain  to  the  further  side  of  the  artificial  tariff 
walls  erected  by  other  countries.  He  is  quite  right, 
too,  in  maintaining  that  we  must  make  haste  to 
consider  the  producer  —  but  which  producer?  As 
things  are  at  present,  the  most  elaborate  tariff  that 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   INDUSTRY  215 

could  be  devised  would  benefit  the  capitalist,  not 
the  labourer.  If  ever  a  Socialist  Government 
should  resort  to  Protection  in  any  particular  it 
would  be  with  the  object  of  benefiting  the  labourer 
rather  than  the  capitalist,  until  the  time  arrives  in 
which  labourer  and  capitalist  shall  be  identical  on  a 
national  scale. 

5.  Profit-sharing.  — There  are  other  partial  reme- 
dies, all  of  which  bear  more  or  less  in  the  direction 
of  SociaUsm  without  actually  reaching  it.  Thus 
we  have  profit-sharing,  as  carried  out  in  some  of 
the  most  flourishing  businesses  in  the  kingdom,  and 
experience  of  its  operation  goes  to  show  that  it  pays. 
A  pubhc-spirited  employer  of  labour  like  Mr. 
W.  H.  Lever,  of  Port  SunHght  fame,  will  tell  us  that 
to  raise  the  standard  of  comfort  among  the  workers, 
and  give  them  a  direct  interest  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  concern  they  serve,  increases  their  efficiency, 
and  therefore  adds  greatly  to  the  annual  output. 
But,  without  seeming  to  be  ungracious,  I  hope  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  such  admirable 
efforts  as  those  of  Mr.  Lever  are  only  helps  in  the 
way  of  mitigating  the  worst  evils  of  our  present 
system.  At  the  best  they  are  of  the  nature  of  benev- 
olent despotism.  Mr.  Lever  is  the  benefactor,  and 
his  work-people  are  recipients  of  his  bounty.  Things 
are  better  for  them  than  for  other  work-people  be- 
cause he  chooses  to  make  it  so,  not  because  they  have 
any  real  power  over  the  matter.  He  is  the  sovereign 
of  a  petty  industrial  State,  not  the  democratically 


2l6       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

chosen  administrator  of  a  Commonwealth.  The 
conditions  of  citizenship  in  that  community  are 
for  him  to  decide,  not  the  people.  If  he  pronounces 
a  decree  of  expulsion,  no  man  can  say  him  nay;  if 
he  withdraws  any  portion  of  the  benefits  of  member- 
ship, there  can  be  no  appeal.  Behind  all,  after  all, 
is  the  will  of  one  man  —  the  mediaeval  baron  in  a 
modern  and  more  attractive  form,  but  almost  equally 
powerful.  Can  we  do  no  better  than  this?  I  ven- 
ture to  think  we  can.  It  is  not  good  that  men  should 
be  kept  in  tutelage,  even  when  they  are  well  fed  and 
housed;  it  is  not  good  that  they  should  be  directed 
hither  and  thither  by  the  waving  of  an  autocrat's 
wand,  even  though  that  autocrat  may  be  the  most 
efl&cient  administrator  on  earth.  Let  him  and 
them  feel  that  they  have  power  to  depose  and  re- 
place him,  and  that  their  immediate  interest  in, 
and  responsibility  for,  the  well-being  of  the  whole 
is  as  great  as  his,  and  the  situation  is  at  once  altered 
for  the  better;  he  is  no  longer  their  master,  but  their 
fellow-servant,  primus  inter  pares.  This  is  morally 
sounder,  without  being  one  whit  less  economically 
advantageous.  The  real  value  of  such  experiments 
as  those  of  Mr.  Lever  is  that  they  help  to  show  us 
how  things  might  be  in  a  well-ordered  community, 
and  put  us  on  the  track  of  solving  some  of  our  most 
pressing  practical  problems. 

6.  Co-operation  and  Peasant  Proprietorship.  — 
The  same  criticism  applies  to  the  Co-operative 
movement.    It   is   partial,   not   complete,   an  im- 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF  INDUSTRY  217 

perium  in  imperio.  It  is  in  the  right  direction, 
but  is  not  the  final  solution.  As  things  are  at  present, 
the  Co-operative  movement  only  gives  us  one  more 
industrial  organisation  with  many  small  share- 
holders instead  of  a  few  large  ones.  And  in  any  case 
the  Co-operative  movement  is  not  going  to  capture 
modern  industry;  it  could  not  do  that  without  getting 
hold  of  all  the  natural  resources  whence  capital 
is  derived,  and  that  will  never  be  done  till  the  nation 
does  it  as  a  whole.  At  the  present  moment  some  of 
the  Welsh  quarrymen  expelled  by  Lord  Penrhyn 
are  manfully  endeavouring  to  develop  a  mining 
industry  of  their  own.  As  a  temporary  expedient 
it  may  be  admirable;  as  a  final  solution  of  their 
problem  it  is  useless.  They  have  given  us  another 
little  group  of  landlords,  that  is  all;  and  things  will 
go  on  much  as  they  are  until  shareholder  and  citizen 
mean  the  same  thing.  It  goes  without  saying,  also, 
that  such  proposals  as  peasant  proprietorship  are 
in  the  opposite  direction  from  what  is  wanted.  They 
may  benefit  a  small  class  for  the  moment,  but  they 
cannot  benefit  the  community  as  a  whole;  in  fact, 
they  are  in  principle  exactly  the  same  as  the  system 
they  profess  to  cure  —  that  is,  they  are  based  upon 
the  private  appropriation  of  the  natural  resources 
which  rightfully  belong  to  all. 

Expropriating  the  Capitalist,  i.  Transit. — We 
are  thus  forced  back  upon  the  one  root-remedy 
explained  in  the  preceding  chapter,  the  communal 
appropriation  and  administration  of  the  means  of 


2l8       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

production.  We  have  seen  how  this  might  be  done 
in  the  case  of  land;  we  ought  now  to  recognise 
that  it  is  equally  feasible  in  the  case  of  what  is 
commonly  called  capital.  The  greater  complexity 
of  the  problem  need  not  deter  us  from  dealing  firmly 
with  it.  The  same  set  of  reasons  which  render  it  un- 
advisable  to  get  rid  of  the  landlords  at  one  fell  swoop 
render  it  unadvisable  to  take  over  great  industrial 
concerns  all  at  once.  To  do  that  would  be  to  dis- 
organise production,  for  we  have  not  the  adminis- 
trative machinery  ready  to  deal  with  the  situation 
which  would  thus  be  created.  We  have  therefore 
to  proceed  gradually  but  surely  in  the  direction 
of  obtaining  full  communal  control  of  organised 
industry  by  expropriating  the  capitalist.  It  would 
be  quite  worth  while  to  buy  him  out  in  the  same  way 
as  the  landlord  —  for,  indeed,  he  is  the  landlord  in 
another  aspect  —  but  we  need  not  pay  through  the 
nose  for  the  privilege  of  doing  so.  We  must  operate 
on  the  line  of  least  resistance  in  every  individual  case. 
It  might  pay  us  to  nationalise  the  railways  at  once, 
for  instance,  by  pledging  the  national  credit  to  the 
shareholders  as  compensation  for  their  private  inter- 
est. The  burden  thus  imposed  upon  the  tax-payer 
would  seem  a  large  one,  but  it  would  only  be  so  on 
paper.  The  real  wealth  represented  by  the  railways 
would  have  passed  into  his  hands,  and  would  ap- 
preciate enormously  by  the  unification  of  adminis- 
tration. For  a  time,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  land, 
the  compensated  shareholders  would  go  on  using 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   INDUSTRY  219 

their  amount  of  compensation  as  a  private  claim 
on  the  national  income  without  doing  anything 
for  it,  and  precisely  the  same  set  of  tendencies  would 
gradually  reduce  this  claim  to  zero.  The  purchasing 
power  of  the  compensation  granted  would  be  vastly 
greater  at  first  than  it  would  a  few  years  afterwards, 
and  it  would  diminish  in  ratio  as  the  general  level 
of  comfort  rose  (see  above,  p.  192,  et  seq,).  But 
one  great  immediate  advantage  would  be  the  cheap- 
ening of  transit.  There  would  be  no  need  to  insist 
that  the  railways  should  pay  directly,  it  would  be 
quite  enough  to  secure  that  they  should  pay  in- 
directly by  causing  the  life-blood  of  the  community 
to  circulate  more  freely.  The  more  mobile  we  could 
render  capital  and  labour,  the  better  for  the  general 
well-being.  At  present  a  great  deal  of  the  dis- 
location of  industry  at  periods  of  depression  in  any 
one  particular  trade  is  due  to  the  difficulty  of  trans- 
porting labour  and  appliances  from  place  to  place 
otherwise  than  at  high  rates.  To  many  people  it 
may  seem  revolutionary  to  say  that  transit  should  be 
as  free  as  walking,  but  in  time  it  will  be  seen  to  be 
enlightened  common  sense.  We  do  not  ask  that  the 
mighty  stream  of  passengers  who  cross  the  thorough- 
fare every  day  in  front  of  the  Royal  Exchange  should 
pay  for  the  pavement  they  walk  on,  and  yet  it  has 
to  be  paid  for.  We  have  come  to  realise  that,  so  far 
as  general  prosperity  is  concerned,  it  is  more  eco- 
nomical for  the  whole  community  to  pay  the  cost  of 
such  up-keep,  and  so  facilitate  the  flow  of  barter 


220       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

and  industrial  development.  Think  of  the  difference 
which  has  been  made  by  the  nationalising  of  the 
postal  and  telegraph  system  as  compared  with  the 
time  when  people  in  ordinary  circumstances  could 
hardly  dream  of  sending  a  letter  from  London  to 
Edinburgh,  because  of  the  cost  of  transmission. 
If  we  were  heavily  taxed  for  the  keeping  up  of  the 
General  Post  Office,  it  would  still  be  worth  our  while, 
for  its  principal  benefits  are  reaped  indirectly. 
It  would  be  just  the  same  with  railways,  tramways, 
canals,  and  even  ocean  shipping'.  The  easier  we 
can  make  it  for  people  to  get  about  the  better, 
whether  for  work  or  play.  If  we  find  it  to  our 
national  interest  to  keep  up  a  fleet  of  war  ships, 
why  not  a  fleet  of  merchant  vessels?  It  may  take 
us  a  good  while  to  arrive  at  this,  but  it  will  come 
as  the  necessary  result  of  the  gradual  socialising  of 
national  industry,  for  we  shall  want  to  do  all  in  our 
power  to  send  out  our  goods  quickly,  or  get  them 
home  with  the  least  possible  difficulty.  Besides, 
there  will  then  be  no  question  as  to  whether  it  is 
just  or  expedient  for  one  individual  or  one  locality 
to  pay  for  the  transport  of  the  goods  of  another, 
for  every  gain  in  the  national  output  will  mean  an 
increase  in  the  individual  share. 

2.  Public  Industries.  —  But  this  question  of  transit 
is  only  the  outworks  of  the  subject.  It  is  a  much 
more  serious  matter  to  know  what  to  do  when  it 
becomes  a  question  of  taking  over  the  capital  at 
present  employed  in  great  concerns  which  are  the 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF  INDUSTRY  221 

fruit  of  individual  initiative  and  enterprise,  and 
perhaps  do  not  always  represent  a  permanent  form 
of  productive  activity.  New  industries  are  always 
coming  into  being,  and  others  are  dying  out.  Ten 
years  ago  we  scarcely  knew  anything  of  automobile 
manufacture;  to-day  it  is  one  of  the  most  prolific 
and  rapidly  increasing  forms  of  industry.  But 
suppose  something  arose  to  render  it  unprofitable 
or  unnecessary,  would  it  be  worth  the  nation's  while 
to  buy  out  the  proprietors  of  a  decaying  concern? 
Can  we  in  any  case  face  the  enormous  problem  of 
buying  out  the  private  owners  of  industrial  capital, 
without  regard  to  the  form  in  which  that  capital  may 
chance  to  be  employed?  Is  it  conceivable  that  the 
community  would  ever  want  to  assume  responsibil- 
ity for  the  sale  of  ice  cream,  for  instance?  and  yet 
this  appears  to  be  a  paying  form  of  investment  in 
some  neighbourhoods. 

Taxation  of  rent  and  interest. — The  complexity 
of  the  problem  thus  illustrated  shows  that  it  is 
impossible  to  lay  down  any  hard  and  fast  rule  for 
the  attainment  of  the  one  grand  end,  namely,  the 
communal  ownership  and  administration  of  the 
sources  of  wealth.  It  may  pay  to  buy  out 
railways,  but  it  may  not  pay  to  buy  out  the 
makers  of  "  antique "  furniture.  It  may  be 
desirable  to  create  a  merchant  fleet,  but  not  to 
run  a  municipal  rag  and  bone  shop.  It  all 
depends  on  circumstances  and  public  opinion. 
But  there  is  no  need  to  make    a    frontal  attack 


222       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

on  the  numerous  and  intricate  vested  interests 
of  this  or  any  other  country.  The  best  and 
wisest  way  in  most  instances  would  be  to  go 
in  for  taxing  profits,  while  at  the  same  time 
safeguarding  the  interests  of  labour  by  fixing 
a  minimum  wage  in  every  established  industry. 
This  method  might  be  slow,  but  it  would  be  sure. 
It  would  gradually  draw  the  two  extremes  of 
society  together.  It  would  not  remove  all  the 
disabilities  of  labour  for  a  good  while  to  come, 
for  it  would  mean  the  dropping  out  of  the  unfit 
who  are  at  present  employed  in  place  of  the  fit 
who  expect  better  terms.  It  would  prevent  people, 
too,  from  adding  to  an  existing  income  by  accept- 
ing less  than  the  standard  rate  of  wages  in  some 
avocation  in  which  they  do  not  need  to  earn  a 
living  at  all.  It  stands  to  reason  that  if  an  employer 
were  compelled  by  law  to  pay  a  certain  standard 
rate  of  remuneration,  he  would  choose  the  most 
efl5cient  labour  he  could  get  for  the  money.  The 
undesirables  thus  weeded  out  would  be  a  public 
burden  while  they  lasted,  but  we  should  gradually 
be  growing  a  generation  of  physically  efiicient  and 
properly  trained  work-people  which  would  no 
longer  produce  such  undesirables.  We  know  now 
where  undesirables  come  from.  They  come  from 
that  gradual  lowering  of  the  standard  of  living 
which  is  the  result  of  precarious  employment  and 
insufficient  food.  The  minimum  wage  would  stop 
that  at  the  fountain  head.    We  should  gradually 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF  INDUSTRY  223 

extend  the  area  of  this  principle  until  practically 
the  whole  field  of  industry  was  brought  within  its 
operation. 

The  stock  objections.  — That  there  would  be 
strong  protest  against  increased  taxation  of  the  rich 
goes  without  saying.  That  protest  is  being  heard 
now,  and  every  year  it  grows  louder.  We  are 
being  told  that  it  is  confiscation  and  robbery,  not 
to  speak  of  a  few  other  names  which  carry  their 
origin  on  their  faces.  We  are  told  that  we  shall 
paralyse  industry  by  taking  away  that  hope  of 
reward  which  makes  a  man  willing  to  work  hard 
and  do  his  best.  We  are  warned  that  if  we  lay 
hands  on  the  profits  of  industry  we  imperil  that 
which  makes  it  worth  a  man's  while  to  exercise 
the  prudence  and  foresight  which  have  quite  as 
much  to  do  with  the  making  of  wealth  as  has  the 
actual  labour  itself.  Why  should  the  man  who, 
by  the  exercise  of  discipline  and  self-control,  has 
made  for  himself  a  competence,  be  compelled  to 
part  with  some  of  it  in  order  to  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  man  who  does  as  little  as  possible, 
and  has  never  denied  himself  any  indulgence  within 
his  power? 

These  are  telling  points  if  they  really  represent 
the  facts;  but  they  do  not.  At  the  present  time 
the  community  as  a  whole  is  already  compelled 
to  support  the  idle  and  unthrifty  class  here  alluded 
to.  When  a  man  becomes  a  wastrel,  wrecks  his 
constitution,   and    becomes   a   burden  on   society, 


224       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

we  do  not  hang  him;  we  feed  him,  and  we  feed 
him  better  than  we  do  the  industrious  toiler  who  in 
his  decHning  years  puts  up  with  untold  hardships 
rather  than  go  into  the  workhouse.  We  may  do 
it  grudgingly,  but  we  do  it.  The  rich  man's  argu- 
ment only  comes  to  this,  that  we  propose  to  tax 
him  rather  more  heavily  than  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity for  what  the  whole  community  does  anyhow, 
and  which  he  can  afford  better  than  his  neighbours. 
But  this  is  not  the  whole  of  the  argument.  I 
would  point  out  to  the  man  of  ample  means  that 
the  system  under  which  he  has  made  his  gains 
is  one  that  inevitably  produces  paupers,  and 
therefore  it  is  just  that  he  should  pay  the  piper 
to  a  greater  extent  than  those  who  have  had  to 
go  without  the  gains.  Most  powerful  of  all, 
however,  is  the  contention  that  the  gains  he  does 
not  want  to  surrender  do  not  rightfully  belong 
to  him  in  any  case.  He  has  no  real  right  to  the 
lion's  share  of  the  communal  income,  and  if  he 
were  morally  enlightened  he  would  not  want  it. 
Supposing  every  word  he  says  to  be  true;  sup- 
posing he  has  worked  his  hardest  and  done  his 
very  best;  even  then  he  ought  not  to  claim  such 
a  share  of  the  total  output  that  his  gain  means 
other  people's  loss.  The  motive  is  wrong;  he 
ought  not  to  be  working  for  gain,  but  for  the  joy 
of  enriching  the  common  Ufe  by  doing  a  good  thing 
well.  I  admit  that  as  things  are  he  has  neces- 
sarily to  think  of  ways  and  means  for  the  sake 


THE   SOCIALISING  OF   INDUSTRY  225 

of  those  immediately  dependent  upon  him;  but 
it  would  be  far  better  even  for  his  own  happiness 
if,  in  doing  his  utmost  for  the  community,  he 
had  no  need  to  take  account  of  material  gain; 
he  ought,  therefore,  to  be  using  his  power  to 
further  the  promotion  of  conditions  in  which  such 
a  necessity  would  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Besides, 
we  do  not  want  his  money  in  order  to  give  it  to  any 
particular  class  or  classes  within  the  community; 
we  want  it  for  the  community  itself.  I  have  already 
shown  that  that  portion  of  the  profits  of  labour 
called  rent  and  interest  belongs  of  right  to  the 
whole  community,  and  not  to  those  who  have  pri- 
vately appropriated  the  means  of  production;  we 
therefore  should  seek  to  get  this  emolument  out  of 
private  into  public  hands,  and  the  best  way  of 
doing  so  is  to  tax  the  people  who  have  got  it  now. 
We  must  keep  on  taxing  these  people  until  we  have 
got  it  all.  Naturally  we  should  begin  with  unearned 
incomes,  but  we  must  keep  on  raising  our  demands 
until  the  whole  of  the  material  advantage  at  present 
possessed  by  the  proprietary  classes  has  passed 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  industrial  community. 
Whatever  buying  out  of  the  capitaHst  may  then 
remain  to  be  done  will  be  a  trifling  matter.  The 
true  spoliation  consists  in  resisting  this  process. 
It  is  perfectly  right  and  just,  and  no  argument  but 
the  argument  of  expediency  could  ever  be  employed 
against  it.  The  State  is  morally  entitled  to  do  it  at 
a   stroke   to-morrow,   but   the   inconvenience   and 

Q 


226       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

suffering  entailed  would  render  it  undesirable  to 
do  it  so  suddenly.  The  best  method  of  securing 
the  desired  end  is,  therefore,  the  one  which  states- 
manship is  already  adopting  by  the  sheer  logic  of 
circumstances. 

Local  versus  national  industrialism.  —  Such  a 
process  would  have  to  be  accompanied  by  a  gradual 
increase  in  the  number  of  industrial  enterprises 
brought  directly  under  pubHc  control,  and  this 
would  necessitate  a  practical  delimitation  of  the 
spheres  of  local  as  compared  with  national  adminis- 
tration, which  I  am  not  prepared  to  discuss  in 
these  pages.  No  man  can  say  beforehand  what 
could  be  most  profitably  administered  on  a  national 
and  what  on  a  municipal  scale;  that  would  have 
to  be  a  matter  of  experience,  and  we  should  make 
some  mistakes  in  buying  our  experience.  Tram- 
ways, for  instance,  might  be  managed  better  locally, 
and  railways  nationally.  But  the  great  thing  to 
recognise  is  that  the  organisation  of  industry  ought 
to  be  as  much  a  matter  of  public  concern  as  the 
Civil  Service,  for  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  the  national 
well-being.  What  we  need  to  do  is  to  increase  the 
national  wealth  as  efficiently  as  possible,  and  to 
bring  every  citizen  within  its  benefits.  What  is 
wanted  is,  as  I  have  abready  said,  that  the  nation 
should  be  one  great  producing  firm  with  every 
citizen  a  shareholder.  Already  the  big  combines 
are  showing  us  the  way  to  do  this,  for  they  have 
proved  conclusively  that  it  is  possible  to  secure 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF   INDUSTRY  227 

a  higher  degree  of  efficiency  by  pooling  resources 
and  paying  salaries  to  officials  who  have  no  direct 
interest  in  the  total  output  than  by  keeping  every- 
thing under  "  the  master's  eye,"  which,  we  used 
to  be  assured,  was  the  only  way  to  obtain  success. 
The  great  industrial  combines  have  proportionately 
lessened  the  cost  of  production  by  concentrating 
the  machinery  of  administration,  differentiating 
functions,  and  taking  in  as  many  branches  of  pro- 
duction as  possible.  The  old  maxim  that  in  order 
to  prosper  a  business  must  specialise  is  being  falsi- 
fied every  day;  the  more  a  business  can  take  in, 
and  produce  for  itself,  the  more  profit  is  it  likely  to 
make.  If  this  be  true  on  a  limited  scale,  how  much 
more  on  a  national  ?  If  the  salaried  officer  is  proved 
efficient  in  a  concern  which  is  capitalised  by  a 
few  thousand  shareholders,  and  organised  into 
a  hundred  different  departments,  he  would  prove 
equally  efficient  if  the  shareholders  were  the  voters 
of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  capital  their  united 
wealth.  It  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  operations 
of  Trusts  and  Combines  are  international,  and  that 
it  is  therefore  impossible  to  make  the  nation  an 
economic  unit.  This  may  be  freely  admitted  with- 
out weakening  the  force  of  the  Socialist  argument; 
on  the  contrary,  it  will  but  strengthen  it.  The  mere 
fact  that  Trusts  and  Combines  have  it  in  their  power 
at  present  to  restrict  output  and  force  up  prices 
should  induce  every  civilised  community  to  national- 
ise its  own  industries,  for  this  means  obtaining  the 


228       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

control  of  markets  and  preventing  any  one  class  in 
the  community  from  exploiting  the  rest.  If  any 
Trust  or  Combine  outside  the  Socialised  State  were 
to  discriminate  against  it,  the  results  would  not 
therefore  be  so  serious  as  they  could  be  at  present. 
And  in  any  case  the  aims  of  Socialism  are  inter- 
national in  their  scope.  It  knows  no  desire  to 
exploit  one  country  for  the  benefit  of  another,  for 
it  rightly  judges  that  in  the  long  run  this  is  an  injury 
inflicted  upon  the  perpetrator.  The  course  here 
recommended  is  the  one  towards  which  the  eco- 
nomic forces  of  the  time  are  steadily  tending.  The 
small  producer  and  trader,  as  well  as  the  isolated 
specialiser,  are  gradually  being  eliminated  by  vast 
producing  and  distributing  concerns  which  are 
turning  what  used  to  be  proprietors  into  wage- 
earners.  The  process  is  hard  upon  the  immediate 
victims,  but  it  is  good  for  society;  and  it  will  have 
to  continue  until  the  wage  system  becomes  uni- 
versal, no  servant  of  the  public  being  exempted 
from  its  operation. 

This  will  mean  no  degradation,  no  deadening 
of  initiative,  and  no  barrack  system  of  control 
over  the  individual.  The  socialised  community 
will  do  exactly  what  the  big  concern  does  now 
with  those  in  its  service;  it  will  promote  the  best 
men  to  the  best  posts,  and  it  will  judge  of  their 
fitness  by  the  quality  of  their  work.  In  one  respect 
it  will  differ  from  the  big  business  of  the  present 
day,  and  that  is  that  the  less  efficient  will  not  be 


THE   SOCIALISING   OF  INDUSTRY  229 

turned  on  the  streets  to  starve.  Every  citizen  a 
shareholder  will  mean  that  every  citizen  will  be 
secure  of  at  least  the  bare  necessaries  of  life  without 
the  grinding  anxiety  and  fearful  drudgery  in  which 
at  present  so  many  of  them  have  to  live.  This  one 
result  alone  would  be  enough  to  justify  the  change. 
Industrial  statesmanship.  — Our  statesmen  will 
be  then  what  our  captains  of  industry  are  now, 
and  the  field  of  their  activities  will  be  vastly  enlarged. 
Instead  of  an  order  of  professional  politicians  we 
should  of  necessity  have  every  business  man  a 
politician  and  every  politician  a  business  man. 
Instead  of  our  present  high  officers  of  State  we 
should  be  asking  ourselves  what  public  man  of 
business  could  be  entrusted  with  the  direction  of 
the  nation's  railways;  who  should  be  qualified  to 
control  the  nation's  shipping;  who  should  be 
administratively  supreme  over  the  nation's  agri- 
culture. If  the  nation's  soap  were  considered  of 
sufficient  importance  to  have  a  department  of  its 
own,  I  have  no  doubt  Mr.  Lever  would  be  at  the 
head  of  it  with  a  salary  commensurate  to  his  worth. 
His  range  of  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  his 
remarkable  organising  abilities  would  be  even 
greater  then  than  it  is  now,  and  it  is  probable  that 
he  would  value  the  position  more.  The  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  would  have  to  extend  his  horizon. 
In  planning  his  budget  the  first  thing  he  would 
have  to  allow  for  would  be  the  probable  amount 
of  the  primal  necessities  of  life  —  food,  clothing, 


230       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

and  shelter  —  which  the  nation  would  require  in 
any  given  year,  and  his  basis  of  calculation  would 
be  the  experience  of  previous  years.  This  done 
he  would  know  what  probable  margin  of  the 
nation's  income  would  remain  for  the  provision 
of  other  things.  How  that  margin  would  be 
administered  would  be  a  matter  of  public  opinion 
and  demand.  For  this  national  organisation  of 
industry  means  the  provision  of  a  wider  life  for 
all  than  we  at  present  dream  of,  and  it  remains 
to  be  shown  how  this  wider  life  can  be  brought 
about. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   SOCIALISED   STATE:   I 

The  worth  of  the  State.  —  In  the  preceding  chap- 
ter I  have  ventured  to  indicate  briefly  what  seem 
to  me  to  be  the  principal  tendencies  at  work  in  the 
direction  of  the  sociaHsing  of  industry.  These 
tendencies  cannot  but  culminate  in  a  form  of  State 
organisation  widely  different  from  that  with  which 
we  are  familiar  at  present,  although  evolved  there- 
from. It  is  impossible  to  say  what  will  be  the 
outcome,  say,  a  hundred  years  hence,  but  in  broad 
outline  it  is  aheady  on  the  horizon,  and  those  on 
the  look-out  are  able  to  distinguish  some  of  its 
outstanding  features.  The  sketching  of  Utopias 
is  always  an  interesting  occupation,  and  in  the  hands 
of  a  master  like  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  is  even  more 
of  a  political  philosopher  than  a  fiction  writer,  it 
may  become  profitable  and  inspiring  to  others. 
But  I  do  not  propose  to  attempt  to  describe  an 
Utopian  society.  In  the  two  chapters  which  follow 
I  have  set  myself  the  humbler  task  of  describing 
what  is  already  on  the  way,  and  may  fairly  be 
expected  as  the  result  of  the  forces  at  work  in  our 
midst.  In  a  word,  we  may  say  that  our  social 
organisation   is  gradually  becoming  moralised,    in 

231 


232       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

the  Christian  sense  of  the  word,  and  the  resultant 
will  be  the  SociaUsed  State. 

What  is  the  State?  Do  many  of  us  ever  ask 
ourselves  what  the  State  is  for,  or  why  we  should 
take  it  for  granted  as  we  do?  What  is  the  good 
of  the  compound  and  perplexing  facts  called  Great 
Britain,  Russia,  Switzerland,  or  the  United  States? 
To  be  sure  we  have  to  take  them  for  granted,  whether 
we  will  or  no,  but  are  they  any  use,  and,  if  so,  what  ? 
The  thorough-going  anarchist  would  answer  these 
questions  right  off  by  saying  that  the  State  is  no 
use  whatever,  but  only  a  hindrance  to  the  best 
kind  of  life  for  human  beings,  and,  therefore,  that 
it  is  desirable  to  get  rid  of  it  as  soon  as  possible  by 
assassinating  rulers  and  paralysing  governments. 
He  will  maintain  that  after  this  immediate  end  has 
been  achieved  things  will  settle  down  comfortably, 
and  that  we  shall  be  able  to  get  on  all  the  better 
without  artificial  restraints.  But  this  will  not  do 
at  all,  and  no  ordinary  sensible  man  would  concede 
its  reasonableness  for  a  moment.  If  every  human 
being  on  earth  were  suddenly  to  wake  up  to-morrow 
with  an  ideally  unselfish  disposition ;  if  all  criminals 
were  transformed  into  saints;  if  prisons,  work- 
houses, and  lunatic  asylums  were  no  longer  needed, 
we  should  still  require  to  be  communally  marshalled 
and  directed  if  we  wished  to  Hve  the  best  kind  of 
civilised  life  possible  to  human  wisdom  and  power 
over  Nature.  As  I  have  shown  above,  we  should 
have    to    combine   in   order   to   produce   material 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  233 

wealth  efficiently;  and  without  such  combination 
even  the  principal  advantages  of  leisure  and  culture 
would  be  impossible.  If,  too,  the  wider  the  scale 
of  such  combination  the  greater  the  proportionate 
output,  it  follows  that  at  present,  and  for  a  long 
while  to  come,  the  State  will  have  to  be  the  final 
unit  of  economic  organisation  for  the  sake  of  realis- 
ing the  best  kind  of  life.  The  time  may  come  when 
the  whole  world  will  become  one  centrally  directed 
society  of  societies,  with  the  sole  object  of  doing 
the  best  for  mankind  without  discriminating  in 
favour  of  any  individual  or  race.  But  the  most 
daring  dreamer  will  hardly  attempt  to  forecast 
what  may  happen  then  or  what  the  world  would  be 
like.  At  present,  therefore,  we  may  content  our- 
selves with  the  recognition  that  the  State  is  de  facto 
the  most  convenient  unit  for  the  organisation  of 
society  on  a  sociaHstic  basis.  The  electors  of  Great 
Britain  can  determine,  for  instance,  what  shall  be 
done  in  this  country,  but  they  cannot  lay  down 
any  rules  for  Germany;  even  for  the  sake  of  man- 
kind, therefore,  our  most  earnest  effort  should  be 
directed  towards  socialising  the  potentialities  of 
this  one  country.  Even  as  things  are  aheady,  the 
civilised  State  is  the  principal  guarantee  of  that 
comparative  order  and  safety  without  which  pro- 
duction, on  anything  like  an  elaborate  scale,  would 
be  impossible.  We  have  only  to  extend  this  in 
order  to  make  the  State  not  merely  the  guardian  of 
production,  but  its  intelligent  director.    This,  then, 


234       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

is  the  principal  value  of  the  modern  State.  It  zs 
a  necessary  means  to  the  realisation  of  the  highest 
kind  of  Hfe  at  present  in  our  power  to  achieve. 
Man  was  not  meant  to  live  alone.  There  is  no 
individual  excellence  which  does  not  require  a 
social  expression,  as  we  have  seen  when  considering 
the  controversy  between  Jesus  and  the  Pharisees. 
No  human  being  can  be  good  or  wise  apart  from 
his  relation  to  other  human  beings.  The  better 
those  relations  can  be  adjusted,  therefore,  the 
better  for  the  quality  of  the  individual  Hfe. 

Material  basis  of  all  higher  life.  —  But,  again, 
this  objective  requires  the  careful  and  harmonious 
regulation  of  the  material  resources  of  the  body 
politic.  ''Man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone,"  but 
neither  can  he  live  without  bread.  The  greater 
our  communal  command  of  the  potentialities  of 
the  material  world  in  which  we  live,  the  greater 
the  extent  of  our  spiritual  possibilities.  This  may 
be  hotly  denied  by  some  moralists  and  some  reli- 
gious people,  but  it  is  surely  demonstrable  from 
ordinary  human  experience.  To  live  for  luxury  is 
a  bad  thing,  and  may  lead  to  the  overthrow  of  a 
nation,  but  that  is  only  because  the  means  have 
been  mistaken  for  the  end.  What  is  ordinarily 
called  materialism  in  practice  is  but  spirituality 
foreshortened;  it  is  the  taking  of  a  wrong  perspec- 
tive upon  the  meaning  of  life. 

Wealth  means  power  over  life.  —  In  order  to 
demonstrate  the  truth  of  this  observation,  let  us 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  235 

ask  ourselves  why  any  man  wants  to  be  rich.  The 
form  of  the  answer  depends  partly  upon  tempera- 
ment, but  I  suppose  we  should  all  admit  that  one 
reason  is  that  as  things  are  at  present  the  possession 
of  wealth  means  power  over  others.  In  fact,  we 
might  quite  truly  say  that  individually  or  com- 
munally the  acquisition  of  wealth  means  the  acqui- 
sition of  power  over  life.  But  many  men  value 
riches  chiefly  because  they  represent  power,  con- 
sideration, and  rule  of  a  certain  kind  in  one's  rela- 
tions with  one's  fellows.  It  is  no  use  decrying  this 
motive,  for  it  is  very  strong,  and  human  nature  is 
largely  constituted  that  way.  There  is  an  old 
saying  that  money  is  power,  and  so  it  unquestionably 
is  in  the  world  as  we  know  it.  The  man  with  money 
can  force  his  way  into  almost  any  society  he  chooses. 
If  he  is  large-minded  enough  not  to  care  for  the 
society  of  dukes  and  duchesses  so  long  as  he  can 
exercise  practical  influence  in  society  at  large  he 
can  do  many  things  that  the  ordinary  man  cannot, 
even  if  possessed  of  education  and  social  advan- 
tages. If  his  financial  operations  are  on  a  gigantic 
scale  he  can  even  make  kings  and  governments  take 
him  into  account.  Rumour  has  it  that  he  can 
make  wars  between  nation  and  nation  occasionally 
when  it  suits  his  purpose.  If  he  wants  to  cut  a 
figure  in  national  politics  he  always  has  a  long  start 
over  the  man  of  limited  means.  If  he  is  fortunate 
enough  to  have  brains  as  well  as  money  he  is  gen- 
erally sure  of  one  of  the  foremost  positions  in  the 


236       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

State,  and  does  not  need  to  wait  until  he  is  old  in 
order  to  get  it.  If  he  is  of  a  philanthropic  turn  of 
mind  he  can  endow  educational  institutions,  sci- 
entific research,  hospitals,  and  such-like.  If  he 
is  utterly  misguided  he  may  endow  theological 
seminaries,  but  he  is  not  often  so  foolish.  In  any 
or  all  of  his  activities  the  man  of  wealth  is  a  man 
of  power.  He  can  set  things  in  motion.  He  can 
say  to  one  man.  Go,  and  he  goeth;  to  another. 
Come,  and  he  cometh;  and  to  his  servant.  Do  this, 
and  he  doeth  it.  For  good  or  for  evil  his  power 
is  always  great,  and,  as  a  rule,  he  likes  exercising 
it.  This  is  one  exceedingly  potent  motive  behind 
the  desire  to  be  rich. 

Wealth  necessary  to  fuller  life.  —  But  there  are 
other  forms  in  which  the  same  desire  expresses 
itself.  Most  people  want  wealth  because  it  means 
command  of  liberty  and  pleasure.  It  gives  pos- 
session of  useful  and  agreeable  things;  leisure, 
and  change  from  monotony;  the  advantages  of 
travel,  culture,  refinement,  and  acquaintance  with 
the  beautiful.  In  a  word,  it  stands  for  more  abund- 
ant life.  Poverty  means  a  narrow  life,  and  there- 
fore one  does  not  want  to  be  poor.  The  poor  man, 
as  a  rule,  is  chained  to  one  spot  and  one  occupation. 
His  interests  are  few  and  his  range  of  activity  is 
small.  Culture,  refinement,  and  all  the  desirable 
experiences  which  require  leisure  for  their  fulfil- 
ment, are  beyond  him.  Naturally  everybody  would 
prefer  the  wider  life,  and  hence  when  a  rich  man 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  237 

opposes  Socialism  he  usually  does  so  from  the  fear 
that  Socialism  would  take  this  wider  life  away 
from  him.  His  fear  is  groundless,  but  quite  natural 
as  things  are  at  present.  The  fear  may  be  a  selfish 
one,  but  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  it  exists.  And 
yet,  as  I  hope  to  show,  the  realisation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Socialism  would  take  nothing  from  the 
rich  man  that  he  at  present  enjoys  except  his  power 
of  exploiting  the  labour  of  others.  So  far  from 
making  his  life  narrower.  Socialism  would  widen 
it.  It  would  not  necessarily  deprive  him  of  his 
power  over  other  men,  but  it  would  prevent  that 
power  from  being  exercised  against  their  will.  For, 
let  me  point  out,  even  now  there  is  a  nobler  way  of 
obtaining  power  over  others  than  is  supplied  by 
the  mere  ownership  of  wealth,  and  it  is  a  kind  of 
power  which  is  tending  to  increase  as  time  goes  on. 
I  refer  to  the  power  of  special  merit  and  ability  as 
exercised  in  a  democratic  State.  Thus  a  states- 
man like  the  British  ex-premier,  Mr.  Balfour,  sprung 
from  our  hereditary  aristocracy,  counts  it  worth 
his  while  to  serve  the  public  in  an  office  to  which 
he  is  elected  by  the  free  choice  of  his  countrymen. 
In  this  respect  he  is  at  once  on  a  level  with  the  able 
plebeian  administrator  who  at  present  presides 
over  the  Local  Government  Board.  Is  not  this 
significant?  Here  is  a  man  of  literary  and  philo- 
sophic tastes  who  might  employ  his  ample  means 
and  leisure  in  living  an  easy  life  at  the  expense  of 
the  workers  of  the  community,  but,  on  the  contrary, 


238       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

he  chooses  the  arduous  and  exacting  life  of  a  public 
servant  in  which  the  financial  remuneration  can 
be  no  object  to  him.  Evidently  he  prefers  the 
power  which  comes  to  him  through  the  effective 
expression  of  public  opinion;  and  neither  less  nor 
more  could  be  said  of  a  Labour  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. This  is  a  far  worthier  motive  for  the  exer- 
cise of  power  than  that  which  is  associated  with 
great  material  possessions.  In  the  former  case  it 
is  dependent  upon  the  free  consent  of  the  commu- 
nity; in  the  latter  it  is  not.  As  things  are  at  present 
the  exercise  of  the  higher  kind  of  power  is  hampered 
and  deflected  to  an  enormous  extent  by  the  existence 
of  the  lower;  what  we  want  is  a  state  of  society  in 
which  the  lower  shall  no  longer  exist  at  all,  but  the 
community  shall  be  free  to  discover  and  make  use 
of  its  best  individual  talent  in  any  and  every  depart- 
ment of  the  public  service.  Only  in  this  way  will 
the  wider  Ufe  at  present  associated  with  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth  become  possible  to  all.  With  the 
passing  of  the  power  of  the  present  ownership  of 
material  resources  will  come  the  power  to  enjoy 
communally  the  benefits  of  the  leisure,  culture, 
and  ampler  opportunities  at  present  within  the 
reach  of  the  rich  alone. 

Individuality  under  Socialism. — Let  us  try  to 
imagine  a  condition  of  society  in  which  the  material 
means  of  existence  would  be  communally  owned 
and  administered.  Imagine  the  responsibilities  of 
our  statesmen,  as  indicated  in  the  last  chapter,  to  be 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  239 

SO  extended  as  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  our  indus- 
trial activities.  Imagine  that  there  was  no  longer 
present  to  any  man's  mind  the  harassing  anxiety 
of  questions  about  food,  clothing,  and  shelter. 
How  much  larger  and  nobler  would  become  the 
field  of  legitimate  ambition  under  such  conditions! 
As  society  is  organised  at  the  present  moment,  true 
individuality  is  crushed  and  hampered  in  a  thousand 
ways.  When  we  meet  the  ordinary  poor  man  of 
native  ability,  do  we  never  wonder  what  he  might 
have  been  if  his  faculties  had  been  so  trained  as  to 
enable  him  to  appreciate  the  best  that  has  been 
thought  and  said  in  the  world,  and  to  add  his  quota 
to  it?  If  refinement  is  a  good  thing  in  a  countess, 
why  not  in  a  laundress?  What  absurdity  to  talk 
of  the  development  of  individuality  in  a  society  in 
which  three-fourths  of  the  population  have  to  toil 
so  hard  that  leisure  is  a  rarity,  and  the  means  to 
refinement  exist  only  for  the  few !  What  higher 
life  is  possible  without  a  material  equipment?  We 
may  go  on  pointing  out  as  long  as  we  please  that 
the  truest  individuahty  has  been  developed  under 
adverse  conditions,  like  those  of  the  Scottish  Uni- 
versity students  before  Mr.  Carnegie  came  to  their 
rescue;  but  a  little  reflection  ought  to  convince 
us  that  there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  things 
why  it  should  not  be  better  still  in  a  more  perfectly 
sociaUsed  community.  The  reason  why  luxury 
often  operates  as  a  deteriorating  influence  upon 
character  is  that  it  exempts  its  possessor  from  the 


240       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

necessity  of  working.  In  the  socialised  State  there 
would  be  no  such  class;  as  the  material  basis  of  life 
would  have  to  be  provided  somehow,  labour  would 
be  absolutely  necessary,  and  no  one  would  be  ex- 
empted from  the  duty  of  performing  his  share. 
Under  such  circumstances  individuality  would  find 
expression  on  a  scale  which  is  not  possible  now. 
It  would  not  be  a  man  here  and  there  who  would 
be  free  to  be  and  give  his  best  to  the  community; 
with  greater  leisure  for  the  many,  better  education, 
the  opportunities  of  general  culture,  and  the  eUmi- 
nation  of  anxiety  for  the  necessaries  of  hfe,  powers 
would  be  released  in  the  ordinary  man  which  can 
never  find  expression  so  long  as  the  present  system 
lasts. 

The  wider  life  made  universal.  —  It  may  be 
thought  that  this  is  only  an  unpractical  dream. 
It  may  be  contended  that  under  the  new  order 
the  life  of  leisure  and  refinement  would  be  as 
impossible  as  now  for  the  unprivileged  m^ajority. 
At  present  the  many  have  to  work  even  to  the  ex- 
treme of  drudgery  to  make  this  wider  Hfe  possible 
for  the  few.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  in  any 
system?  Would  there  ever  be  leisure  and  luxury 
enough  to  go  round?  Is  it  conceivable  that  the 
general  level  of  refinement  and  culture  could  possibly 
be  as  high  then  as  it  is  now  for  the  privileged  classes  ? 
Well,  even  if  it  were  not,  one  could  gladly  welcome 
the  change  if  only  to  get  rid  of  the  blood  and  agony 
which  the  cultured  life  of  the  few  costs  the  whole 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  24I 

community  now.  If  the  slum  is  the  price  we  have 
to  pay  for  refinement  and  beauty  at  the  other  end 
of  the  social  scale,  then  let  us  go  without  refinement 
and  beauty,  or,  at  any  rate,  put  up  with  less  of  them ; 
it  would  be  well  worth  the  sacrifice.  But,  believe 
me,  no  such  sacrifice  would  ever  be  needed.  In  our 
folly  at  present  we  imagine  that  the  privileged  would 
have  something  to  lose  if  their  brethren  in  the  outer 
darkness  were  called  in  to  share  in  the  banquet  of 
light  and  joy,  whereas  the  fact  is  we  are  losers  already 
by  not  having  called  them  in  sooner.  If  the  change 
advocated  by  Socialism  only  means  a  change  in  the 
way  of  benefiting  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many 
it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  trouble  our  heads 
about  it.  But  it  is  not  so.  We  have  never  yet  tried 
what  combination  can  do  on  the  grand  scale;  we 
have  only  tried  it  timidly  and  uncertainly.  The 
greatest  indictment  of  the  competitive  system  is  its 
wastefulness  both  in  wealth  and  workers.  If,  even 
under  our  present  cruel  and  wasteful  system,  com- 
bination and  labour-saving  machinery  between 
them  have  been  able  to  treble  the  annual  output  of 
wealth  per  head  since  the  rise  of  modern  industrial- 
ism, what  may  we  not  expect  when  their  joint  oper- 
ation is  made  more  efficient  ?  It  is  hardly  to  be  sup- 
posed that  we  are  more  than  at  the  beginning  of 
what  the  increase  of  labour-saving  appHances  will 
enable  us  to  do.  We  may  reasonably  hope  that 
manual  drudgery  will  be  considerably  reduced,  but 
even  if  it  were  not  so,  the  tendency  of  things  is 


242       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

already  in  the  direction  of  making  the  cultured  man 
less  shy  of  manual  labour.  The  skilled  artisan  is 
proud  of  his  trade,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
time  should  not  speedily  come  when  it  will  be  con- 
sidered a  disgrace  for  a  man  to  be  willing  to  be 
a  useless  parasite  upon  the  labour  of  others.  In 
all  new  countries  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  servants 
is  driving  the  well-to-do  classes  to  perform  services 
for  themselves  which  were  formerly  considered 
menial  occupations;  as  wealth  becomes  socialised 
the  same  tendency  will  show  itself  equally  every- 
where. 

Even  now  a  moderate  income  can  command  the 
wider  life.  —  But,  without  labouring  this  point,  let  us 
appeal  to  facts  which  simple  observation  will  suffice 
to  prove.  In  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  suggestive  httle 
pamphlet,  "  SociaHsm  for  MilHonaires,"  the  state- 
ment is  made  that  modern  production  is  tending 
more  and  more  to  cater  for  the  wants  of  the  many 
instead  of  the  few.  The  higher  an  income  the  less 
its  proportionate  purchasing  power.  The  man  of 
wealth  can  have  the  best  of  everything,  it  is  true, 
but  in  this  respect  he  is  not  much  better  off  than  the 
man  of  modest  means.  The  only  advantage  he 
possesses  in  the  way  of  luxury  is  that  he  can  skim 
the  cream  off  the  commodities  produced  for  general 
consumption.  He  can  purchase  a  ten  thousand 
dollar  motor-car  —  he  can  purchase  ten  of  them  if  he 
likes,  but  he  can  only  use  them  one  at  once.  The 
man  of  limited  means  can  purchase  a  five  hundred 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  243 

dollar  car  and  do  almost  as  well;  the  only  advan- 
tage possessed  by  Dives  is  that  he  happens  to  have 
got  the  better  car  of  the  two,  that  is  all.  It  is  much 
the  same  with  anything  else.  The  man  with  the 
smaller  income  can  give  his  son  as  good  an  education 
as  the  milhonaire.  He  can  hve  in  a  house  just  as 
beautiful,  though  not  so  large.  He  can  employ  his 
leisure  just  as  happily,  perhaps  a  little  more  so, 
because  he  is  never  in  danger  of  ennui.  He  cannot 
own  a  private  yacht,  but  he  can  pay  his  fare  on  a 
public  one  which  is  quite  as  good.  There  is  hardly 
any  place  the  millionaire  can  visit  which  he  cannot 
visit  too,  thanks  to  co-operative  touring.  He  cannot 
afford  to  keep  up  expensive  grounds  and  orchid 
houses,  but  equally  well-kept  public  parks  are  open 
to  him,  and  he  can  visit  Kew  Gardens  —  or  similar 
flower  treasuries  —  whenever  he  pleases.  Almost 
the  only  difference  between  the  man  of  moderate 
income  and  the  millionaire  is  that  the  latter  possesses 
the  sinister  power  over  others,  already  alluded  to, 
which  he  ought  not  to  have;  there  is  hardly  any 
requisite  of  a  refined  and  cultured  Ufe  in  which  the 
one  is  not  as  well  off  as  the  other.  Be  it  understood 
I  am  now  pointing  out  the  opportunities  enjoyed 
by  the  man  with,  say,  an  income  of  a  few  hundreds 
a  year  as  compared  with  the  man  who  is  master  of  as 
many  thousands  or  even  millions;  but  I  do  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  even  this  man  of  moderate  in- 
come belongs  to  the  financial  aristocracy,  as  wealth 
is  at  present  distributed.    The  point  of  the  com- 


244       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

parison  is  that  if  all  the  members  of  the  community 
were  only  as  well  off  as  the  average  professional  man 
is  now  with  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  hundred  a 
year,  there  would  be  very  little  which  great  wealth 
can  procure  which  would  not  be  open  to  everybody. 
Co-operative  consumption.  —  Can  this  be  done  ? 
Most  assuredly  it  can.  Even  now,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  annual  income  of  the  United  Kingdom 
amounts  to  at  least  $870  per  adult  man.  If 
we  measure  by  the  family  it  should  be  larger 
still.  We  may  say  that  probably  the  average 
income  per  family  is  not  less  than  $20  or  $25  a 
week.  Imagine  the  purchasing  power  of  this 
sum  socialised.  Imagine  the  effect  of  combina- 
tion on  a  grand  scale  with  even  this  amount  as 
an  equitable  basis  to  start  from.  Imagine  all  the 
means  to  a  full  and  interesting  Hfe,  such  as  the 
rich  man  can  at  present  enjoy,  communally  owned 
and  administered.  Imagine  the  lessening  of 
waste,  and  the  gradual  raising  of  the  average 
power  of  production  consequent  on  the  improve- 
ment in  physical  efficiency  and  mental  alertness 
in  what  are  now  called  the  lower  classes.  Why, 
if  the  national  income  has  trebled  once  it  could 
be  trebled  again,  only  we  should  no  longer 
measure  by  such  symbols.  Such  appurtenances 
of  capital  as  are  now  represented  by  palatial 
establishments  would  no  longer  exist  except  in 
public  use.  It  is  obvious  that  not  only  would 
the  means  to  a  healthy  existence  be  assured  to 


I 


THE  SOCIALISED  STATE  245 

all,  but  even  a  measure  of  luxury  too.  After  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  had  made  sure  of 
the  required  amount  of  the  primal  necessaries 
of  life  —  and  that  could  be  done  by  ten  million 
workers  working  from  four  to  six  hours  a  day 
—  public  opinion  would  begin  to  demand  other 
desirable  things,  and  there  would  be  a  sufficient 
margin  of  wealth  under  the  new  conditions  to 
render  them  possible.  But  in  most  of  the  things 
which  are  now  the  private  preserve  of  the  mil- 
lionaire private  property  would  no  longer  exist. 
There  would  always  have  to  be  private  property 
in  some  things,  to  be  sure;  men  could  hardly 
share  in  the  wearing  of  coats  and  slippers,  for 
instance.  But  practical  convenience  would  settle 
all  such  points  without  the  necessity  for  special 
regulations.  It  would  be  more  convenient  for 
the  industrial  community  to  retain  the  public 
control  of  taximeter  cabs  —  the  communal  motor- 
car—  but  there  would  be  no  rule  to  prevent  an 
individual  from  acquiring  one  for  his  own  private 
use  if  he  chose  to  expend  his  share  of  the  com- 
munal income  in  that  way.  But  probably  few 
would  wish  to  do  so;  it  would  be  more  con- 
venient to  acquire  the  individual  use  of  such 
special  facilities  at  the  special  times  when  they 
might  be  wanted.  Communal  ownership  would 
thus  largely  mean  co-operative  consumption  as 
well  as  co-operative  production,  though  not 
always     of    necessity     so.      Individuality     would 


246       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

here  come  into  play.  Granted  that  the  citizen 
shareholder  were  able  to  use  his  equitable  share 
of  the  communal  wealth  as  he  pleased,  there 
would  be  nothing  to  prevent  him  doing  so  up  to 
the  limit  of  his  resources,  and  it  would  be  a  matter 
of  individual  taste  how  he  employed  his  leisure  or 
what  kind  of  facility  he  would  require  in  so 
doing.  One  man  would  sail  and  another  would 
fly;  one  would  read  and  another  would  paint; 
one  would  career  about  in  an  automobile  and 
another  sit  alone  on  a  mountain-top.  But  there 
would  be  nothing  whatever  to  prevent  us  from 
individually  employing  our  share  of  the  national 
income  exactly  as  we  pleased  in  making  use  of 
what  was  communally  produced.  The  demand 
would  create  the  supply  of  the  kind  of  things 
required.  If  there  were  not  enough  public 
steamers  one  year,  there  would  have  to  be  more 
next  year;  if  there  were  too  many,  we  should 
build  less.  If  there  were  either  shortage  or 
waste,  or  if  there  were  undue  delay  in  satisfying 
popular  demand,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  the 
aggrieved  Briton  would  make  his  voice  heard  in 
protest,  and  roundly  declare,  by  means  of  plat- 
form and  press,  that  such  a  scandalous  state  of 
things  had  never  been  knovm  before !  Whereat 
some  who  could  remember  the  good  old  times 
when  millionaires  and  slums  existed  would  smile 
and  bid  the  angry  citizens  be  patient.  Govern- 
ments might  not  go  in  and  out  of  office  as  they 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  247 

do  now,  but  individuals  would.  Every  minister 
of  State,  who  would  ipso  facto  be  a  director  of 
industry,  would  come  under  the  sharp  scrutiny 
of  public  opinion,  and,  if  proved  inefficient,  would 
be  replaced  by  a  better  man.  Competition  there 
certainly  would  be  for  the  best  positions,  and, 
poor  human  nature  being  what  it  is,  there 
would  doubtless  be  some  disappointment  and 
heart-burning  when  a  great  office  fell  vacant 
which  only  one  man  could  fill,  and  thousands  of 
capable  men  ready  to  fill  it.  But  this  kind  of 
competition  would  not  be  so  cruel  or  unjust  as 
that  which  operates  now;  it  would  not  be  com- 
petition as  to  how  Uttle  a  man  would  take  for 
his  work,  but  how  much  he  ought  to  have.  Just 
as  at  present  we  have  a  standard  rate  of  wages 
for  an  Archbishop,  so  in  time  we  shall  have  a 
standard  rate  of  remuneration  for  every  position 
in  the  industrial  Commonwealth.  We  shall  not 
stint  the  men  at  the  top,  but  their  advantage 
over  their  fellows  will  be  small  compared  with 
what  it  is  now,  from  the  purely  financial  point 
of  view;  our  first  care  will  be  to  guarantee  the 
minimum  standard  of  physical  efficiency  and 
comfort  necessary  for  every  member  of  the 
community.  We  shall  feel  that  we  can  no  longer 
afford  to  neglect  this,  for  our  present  experience 
will  have  taught  us  that  the  general  level  of 
efficiency  is  bound  to  suffer  if  we  do.  Once 
this   is   done    we    can   begin    to    talk   about   the 


248      CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

special   emoluments   to   be    attached   to   positions 
of  special  dignity  and  responsibility. 

The  worker  and  the  child.  —  One  thing  should 
be  clear  from  the  foregoing:  there  would  be  no 
point  in  getting  rich,  for  the  very  things  which 
riches  can  obtain  at  present  would  then  be  accessible 
to  all  without  pauperising  any.  There  would  be 
no  anxiety  for  old  age,  for  the  birthright  of  every 
citizen  would  be  a  share  in  the  production  of  the 
national  wealth,  and  maintenance  from  the  common 
store  when  his  working  days  were  over.  If  he 
chose  to  save  part  of  his  annual  income  during  his 
productive  period,  so  as  to  increase  his  claim  on 
the  State  in  his  declining  years,  there  would  be 
nothing  to  prevent  him,  but  he  would  not  be  able 
to  pass  on  his  claim  to  his  descendants.  The 
utmost  that  a  man  could  do  for  his  children  would 
be  to  supply  them  with  the  best  moral  training 
and  atmosphere  the  home  could  furnish,  and  direct 
their  growing  energies  into  the  most  suitable 
channels  of  communal  service.  The  State  would 
educate,  and  probably  even  feed  them  while  they 
were  under  public  tutelage;  the  duty  of  the  parent 
would  be  to  give  them  that  individual  care  and 
affection  without  which  the  work  of  the  State  would 
leave  much  to  be  desired.  It  is  sheer  nonsense  to 
say  that  with  the  removal  of  direct  parental  responsi- 
bility for  the  feeding  of  children  the  tie  between 
parent  and  child  would  be  weakened,  or  idle  and 
selfish  habits  be  encouraged.    If  it  is  not  so  now 


THE  SOCIALISED  STATE  249 

with  the  grant  of  universal,  free,  compulsory,  ele- 
mentary education,  why  should  it  be  so  with  regard 
to  food?  The  tie  between  parent  and  child  would 
be  strengthened  rather  than  weakened  with  the 
raising  of  the  general  level  of  refinement  and 
courtesy.  Our  existing  slum  neighbourhoods  are 
hardly  ideal  atmospheres  for  the  encouragement 
of  parental  responsibility;  indeed  it  is  just  the 
other  way  about.  But  even  under  the  most  ideal 
social  system  the  guiding  hand  of  the  parent  would 
always  be  wanted  in  shaping  the  career  of  a  child. 
It  would  be  the  parent  who  would  note  the  budding 
talent  as  readily  as  the  schoolmaster,  and  have  the 
largest  influence  in  the  choice  of  the  institutions  in 
which  that  particular  talent  could  best  be  de- 
veloped. There  would  be  no  more  barriers  of 
privilege  to  prevent  him  from  placing  his  child 
under  the  best  tuition  the  community  could  pro- 
vide. Every  kind  of  educational  facility  would 
be  absolutely  free  and  open;  this  would  be  the  truest 
economy  from  the  point  of  view  of  society  at  large. 
If  a  mistake  were  made  in  the  choice  of  a  vocation, 
as  might  easily  happen,  it  would  not  be  irremedi- 
able ;  with  the  aboUtion  of  excessive  hours  of  labour 
there  would  always  be  sufficient  leisure  for  any 
youth  or  man  to  prepare  himself  in  public  institu- 
tions to  enter  some  new  field  of  activity.  There 
would  be  no  reason  why  any  individual  should  not 
keep  on  attending  such  institutions  as  long  as  he 
pleased,  provided  he  was  not  shirking  his  daily 


250       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

duty  in  the  calling  he  had  first  chosen.  The  pro- 
vision of  the  fullest  technical  training,  without 
restriction  of  any  kind  upon  applicants,  would  be 
a  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  socialising  of 
industry.  It  would  be  to  the  highest  interest  of 
the  State  to  see  that  every  craftsman  was  as  thor- 
oughly trained  as  possible  for  the  kind  of  work 
he  had  chosen. 

The  regulation  of  the  influx  of  labour  to  the 
several  trades.  — That  there  would  always  be  a 
certain  amount  of  maladjustment  goes  without 
saying.  For  one  thing,  no  matter  how  carefully 
production  might  be  regulated,  there  would  have  to 
be  some  displacement  of  labour  at  certain  periods 
in  certain  trades  caused  by  the  falling  off  in  the 
demand  for  the  particular  commodity  produced 
by  that  trade.  It  is  difficult  to  see,  for  instance, 
how  as  many  bricklayers  could  be  employed  in 
winter  as  in  summer,  and,  if  not,  what  would 
become  of  the  surplus?  The  same  might  be  said 
of  all  fluctuating  occupations.  At  the  bottom  of 
the  industrial  scale,  therefore,  we  should  always 
be  liable  to  have  a  class  of  non-efficients,  the 
overflow  of  the  various  trades  and  professions, 
and  there  would  have  to  be  a  kind  of  employ- 
ment provided  for  them  which  could  stand  still 
or  go  on,  according  to  the  demand  for  labour  in 
other  fields.  Such  kind  of  employment  would  be 
that  so  often  recommended  in  these  days  as  tem- 
porary rehef  for  the  unemployed,  namely,  recla- 


THE    SOCIALISED   STATE  251 

mation  of  foreshores,  afforestation,  and  other 
simple  works  of  public  utility.  But  even  this 
would  not  be  enough.  The  flow  of  labour  into 
the  various  channels  of  public  service,  even 
under  ordinary  conditions,  would  have  to  be 
regulated,  although  it  would  only  be  in  rare  cir- 
cumstances that  any  youth  would  be  prohibited 
from  entering  any  special  industry.  If  there 
were  too  many  clerks,  for  instance,  the  difficulty 
would  not  be  met  by  lowering  wages,  or  even  by 
closing  the  door  to  fresh  appHcants  from  the 
pubUc  schools,  but  by  publishing  the  facts  and 
showing  where  the  best  openings  were  to  be 
found.  Entrance  into  overcrowded  trades  or 
professions  would  thus  be  discouraged.  Those 
who  nevertheless  persisted  in  the  choice  of  such 
a  field  of  activity  would  have  to  take  the  risk  of 
dropping  down  into  the  fluctuating  class  for 
whom  rehef  works  were  provided,  and  whose 
number  would  be  large  or  small,  according  to  the 
demand  for  service  in  the  ordinary  departments 
of  industry.  There  would  be  no  *'  unemploy- 
able "  class,  for  there  would  be  no  idle,  under-fed 
class  from  which  it  could  be  recruited.  It  would 
be  no  charity  on  the  part  of  the  community 
to  find  work  for  the  temporarily  displaced;  en- 
lightened public  opinion  would  reaUse  that  the 
community  was  richer  by  every  pair  of  hands  em- 
ployed, and  poorer  by  every  pair  unemployed  while 
the  mouths  belonging  to  the  hands  had  to  be  fed. 


m 


252       CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Worthy  and  unworthy  demand  for  commodities.  — 

Another  thing  which  would  certainly  be  changed 
for  the  better  would  be  the  kind  and  quality  of  the 
production  which  would  be  permitted  or  encouraged. 
At  present  a  great  part  of  the  energy  of  the  com- 
munity is  misdirected  in  the  matter  of  production, 
because  of  the  whimsical  and  even  evil  requirements 
of  those  whose  possession  of  wealth  enables  them 
to  make  an  effective  demand.  How  could  it  be 
for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  for  instance,  that 
some  extravagant  woman  should  have  power  to 
keep  a  whole  estabUshment,  or  half  a  dozen  estab- 
lishments, working  night  and  day  to  produce  the 
materials  for  a  **  freak  "  dinner  or  ball,  to  which 
every  guest  had  to  come  habited  in  a  style  which 
would  never  be  worn  again,  and  in  which  the  various 
viands  and  decorations  had  cost  a  fortune  to  pro- 
vide? Such  senseless  extravagance  is  wicked, 
because  its  only  object  is  eccentricity  or  display, 
and  the  labour  withdrawn  from  really  productive 
occupations  in  order  to  make  it  possible  represents 
an  amount  of  human  misery  which  cannot  be  esti- 
mated. This  is  the  simple  truth,  although  we 
seldom  look  at  it  that  way.  When  the  poor  go 
hungry  or  cold  it  may  be  because  the  food  and 
clothing  which  they  need  are  lying  unused  in  store- 
houses which  they  have  not  the  means  to  unlock; 
but  it  may  quite  as  readily  be  because  the  labour 
which  should  have  gone  to  the  production  of  that 
food  and  clothing  is  being  wasted  in  the  gratifica- 


THE  SOCIALISED  STATE  253 

tion  of  extravagant  folly.  In  a  properly  socialised 
community  such  a  wrong  kind  of  demand  would 
be  impossible.  Private  extravagance  would  no 
longer  have  the  power  to  compel  labour  to  do  its 
bidding  on  such  a  scale,  much  less  to  divert  pro- 
duction from  healthy  and  needful  channels.  As 
the  public  good  would  be  the  object  of  industrial 
administration,  so  would  pubHc  opinion  be  the 
arbiter  as  to  what  constituted  the  public  good.  If 
public  opinion  should  suddenly  decide  to  go  in  for 
headdresses  of  peacock's  feathers,  and  fashions 
should  set  that  way  with  a  rush,  the  most  level- 
headed of  industrial  administrators  could  do 
nothing  but  bow  to  the  demand;  but  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  only  a  few  eccentric  individuals 
decided  for  this  course  they  would  not  find 
their  tastes  gratified;  the  captains  of  industry 
would  not  consider  the  demand  a  legitimate  one. 

People  who  cannot  work  by  time  and  rule.  — 
There  is  one  class  of  employment  to  which  it  may 
be  thought  the  considerations  contained  in  this 
chapter  do  not  apply,  namely,  the  small  but  specially 
gifted  class  whose  best  work  cannot  be  done  by  rule 
of  thumb  or  at  any  given  time,  but  only  as  the 
afflatus  comes.  A  mechanic  can  ham^mer  a  table 
together  in  a  given  number  of  hours,  and  every  hour 
will  represent  just  so  much  work;  but  an  artist  in 
letters  or  colour  will  not  be  able  to  proceed  in  that 
way.  If  he  does,  the  quality  of  his  work  will  neces- 
sarily be  poorer.    How  is  this  difficulty  to  be  met? 


254      CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

What  place  will  the  socialised  State  reserve  for 
genius?  Probably  the  socialised  State  will  treat 
genius  almost  as  badly  as  it  is  treated  now;  that  is, 
it  will  misunderstand  and  browbeat  it  until  it  is 
dead,  and  then  build  it  a  fine  sepulchre  or  endow 
scholarships  to  perpetuate  its  fame.  This  is  a  way 
which  human  nature  has,  and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  it  will  change  greatly  from  age  to  age.  The 
man  who  is  different  from  other  people  must  expect 
their  disapproval  and  probably  their  active  hostility; 
if  he  has  a  real  message  to  deliver  he  will  have  to  go 
into  the  wilderness  until  the  time  comes  when  that 
message  has  done  its  work.  Loneliness  and  per- 
secution are  likely  to  be  the  lot  of  the  sons  of  the 
morning  to  the  end  of  time. 

But,  granted  this  is  so,  it  can  hardly  be  that  the 
future  will  be  altogether  so  sad  and  dark  as  the  past 
for  the  being  whose  value  to  the  community  consists 
in  what  he  does  in  hours  of  special  inspiration  and 
insight  rather  than  hours  of  plodding  industry. 
If,  even  now,  the  seers  have  been  able  to  give  us  their 
vision,  notwithstanding  the  stem  necessity  of  earning 
a  Hving  amid  neglect  and  ridicule,  they  will  be  better 
able  to  do  it  in  circumstances  where  their  bread  shall 
be  given  them  and  their  water  shall  be  sure.  Granted 
that  the  child  of  genius  must  choose  his  vocation 
like  other  people ;  granted  that  no  one  sees  his  great- 
ness; granted  that  he  makes  a  poor  shoemaker  or 
tailor,  it  will  still  be  true  that  he  has  more  leisure 
than  of  old  to  listen  for  the  Divine  voice,  and  that 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  255 

he  need  not  go  hungry.  But  if,  as  will  often  happen, 
the  responsible  guardians  of  public  interest  hear  of 
the  work  of  a  youthful  Handel  or  Murillo,  it  will  be 
their  duty  and  their  wisdom  to  encourage  the  gift 
that  is  in  him,  and  place  him  where  it  can  grow 
without  being  exposed  to  the  chill  blasts  of  dis- 
couragement and  misfortune.  And  in  all  the  re- 
cognised departments  of  the  national  life  where  the 
scholar,  poet,  thinker,  and  patient  researcher  are 
wanted,  time  and  opportunity  will  be  given  them. 
Their  work  will  not  be  sawn  ofif  in  lengths,  but 
judged  by  another  standard. 

Some  of  the  steps  now  being  taken  towards  the 
socialised  State.  —  In  what  has  now  been  said  the 
critical  reader  may  see  only  the  profitless  attempt 
to  sketch  an  Utopia,  which  was  expressly  disowned 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter.  But  I  think  it 
can  be  shown  that  it  is,  after  all,  only  a  reading  of  the 
future  in  the  light  of  tendencies  already  at  work. 
Who  will  deny  that  wealth  means  power  over  life, 
and  that  combination  is  necessary  to  the  fullest 
development  of  that  power,  whether  moral  or  spiri- 
tual? Who  will  deny  that  under  our  existing  eco- 
nomic system,  or  want  of  system,  the  individuality 
of  the  average  man  is  cribbed,  cabined,  and  con- 
fined? If  combination  of  material  resources  were 
carried  out  on  a  national  scale,  would  not  the  result 
mean  deliverance  from  anxiety  and  a  wider  life  for 
all  instead  of  only  for  the  few  ?  But,  apart  from  all 
theorising,  this  is  exactly  the  way  things  are  tending 


256      CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

now.  The  provision  of  old  age  pensions  is  one  step 
in  the  process.  Free  meals  for  school  children  is 
another.  Free  education  we  already  have,  but  it 
will  have  to  become  far  more  efficient  than  it  is, 
especially  in  the  provision  of  technical  instruction; 
the  great  existing  hindrance  to  a  satisfactory  settle- 
ment of  our  outstanding  problems  under  this  head 
is  the  religious  imbroglio,  and  the  sooner  we  can 
get  rid  of  it  the  better.  The  Employers'  Liability 
Acts  are  an  instalment  of  what  is  to  come  when  the 
industrial  community  is  the  sole  employer.  Is  it 
not  true  that  public  expenditure  tends  to  increase 
and  private  expenditure  to  decrease?  The  outcry 
about  rising  rates  and  an  advancing  income  tax 
shows  that  the  desire  for  retrenchment  is  futile; 
and  it  ought  to  be  futile,  for  a  nation  is  richer  by 
what  it  wisely  spends  communally,  and  poorer  by 
all  the  cost  of  private  indulgence.  Every  year  the 
opportunities  of  travel,  culture,  and  enjoyment, 
which  formerly  were  the  special  preserve  of  the  rich, 
are  being  made  more  and  more  accessible  to  the 
general  public,  always  by  co-operation  or  communal 
enterprise.  Every  year  the  purchasing  power  of 
large  incomes  proportionately  declines;  every  year 
the  State  is  levying  a  larger  toll  upon  the  material 
possessions  a  man  leaves  behind  him  when  he  dies, 
or  the  income  he  enjoys,  without  having  earned  it, 
while  he  lives.  Every  year  the  community  is  ap- 
propriating more  of  the  proceeds  of  rent  and  interest 
and  applying  them  to  public  uses.    What  can  be 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  257 

the  outcome  of  all  this  but  the  realisation  of  an 
industrial  order  in  which  co-operative  production  and 
co-operative  consumption  will  go  hand  in  hand, 
and  the  resultant  output  of  wealth  be  enormously 
increased?  Every  year  the  State  or  the  local  au- 
thorities are  increasing  the  number  of  organisations 
in  which  direct  employment  has  to  be  given  to 
thousands  of  workmen  who  receive  a  standard  wage. 
It  will  only  be  a  matter  of  time  before  a  standard 
wage  is  insisted  upon  in  all  employments;  and  not 
so  very  much  longer  before  all  employments  will 
be  brought  directly  under  communal  control,  either 
by  the  taking  over  of  big  concerns  or  by  the  addition 
of  departments  to  the  communal  enterprises  already 
existing.  Thus  we  have,  or  shall  have,  municipal 
dwelling-houses,  bakeries,  steamboats,  fire  insurance, 
hospitals,  slaughter-houses,  pawnshops,  gasworks, 
electric  works,  tramways,  milk  distribution,  laun- 
dries, and  even  nurseries.  Where  is  this  to  stop? 
Why  should  it  stop  anywhere  so  long  as  it  can  be 
advantageously  increased?  and  what  can  create  the 
demand  for  commodities  communally  produced 
except  pubUc  opinion?  We  may  be  quite  sure  that 
as  soon  as  any  special  form  of  enterprise,  even  fruit 
selUng  or  bicycle  making,  begins  to  be  an  interest 
in  which  the  pubHc  as  a  whole  is  directly  concerned, 
it  will  be  taken  out  of  private  hands;  in  time  there 
will  not  be  much  left  for  private  capital  to  do,  and 
not  much  capital  to  do  it  with.  With  education, 
housing,    child-feeding,    the    minimum   wage,    and 


258       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

old  age  provided  for,  we  have  the  foundation  of  a 
perfectly  socialised  State — and  all  these  are  here  now, 
in  embryo  at  least.  Then  indeed  we  can  begin  to 
hope  for  such  a  raising  of  the  general  level  of  culture 
and  refinement  that  what  is  now  the  exception  may 
become  the  common  standard  of  attainment  in  a 
happy  and  enlightened  fellowship  of  service.  Not 
until  our  productive  activities  have  become  fully 
socialised  will  individual  liberty  in  the  fullest  sense 
become  possible. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   SOCIALISED  STATE:  H 

Socialism  and  the  family.  —  In  the  survey  we 
have  now  been  making  of  the  probable  effects  of  the 
socialising  of  wealth  and  labour  nothing  has  been 
said  about  certain  outstanding  problems  in  which 
human  nature  has  as  yet  shown  itself  stronger  than 
any  code  of  regulations,  however  stringent.  Of 
these,  the  most  intractable  and  dehcate  is  that  of 
the  relations  of  the  sexes,  with  all  the  far-reaching 
consequences  involved  therein.  It  is  repeatedly 
laid  to  the  charge  of  SociaUsm  that  it  involves  free 
love,  which  is,  I  suppose,  a  euphemism  for  free  lust. 
This  charge,  if  true,  would  entirely  justify  the  further 
assertion,  so  commonly  made,  that  SociaHsm  means 
the  break-up  of  the  family  on  which  our  western 
civiHsation  rests.  It  would  be  useless  to  give  a 
flat  denial  to  these  charges,  for  there  is  a  small  modi- 
cum of  truth  in  them  of  which  SociaUsts  have  no 
need  to  be  ashamed.  But  that  modicum  of  truth 
must  not  be  confounded  with  the  extreme  utterances 
of  the  so-called  Socialists  who  are  really  sexual 
anarchists.  Of  these  there  are  very  few,  and  not 
only  do  they  not  represent  the  movement  as  a  whole, 
but  the  movement  as  a  whole  would  repudiate  them 

259 


26o       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

entirely.     Socialism  ought  no  more  to  be  judged 
by  the  eccentricities  of  a  very  few  amongst  its  pro- 
fessed adherents  than  any  other  system,  religious, 
moral,  or  political.    Christianity  has  produced  ex- 
ponents of  free  love,  and  continues  to  do  so  from 
time  to  time,  but   no  sane  person  would  think  of 
estimating  Christianity  by  the  utterances  of  such 
individuals.    When  I  speak,  therefore,  of  the  modi- 
cum of  truth  which  underlies  the  charge  that  Social- 
ism would  interfere  with  marriage  and  the  family 
1  do  not  mean  that  the  Socialist  movement  shows 
any  indication  whatever  of  a  tendency  to  encourage 
promiscuity  in  sex  relations.    What  I  do  mean  is 
that  Socialism  will  do  away  with  the  unfair  pre- 
dominance of  one  sex,  insist  on  the  absolute  equality 
of  men  and  women  before  the  law,  and  hold  the 
parent  responsible  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  at 
present,  as  the  trustee  of  the  State,  for  the  welfare 
of    the    child.    The    autocratic    and    proprietorial 
paternal  government  of  the  family  is  already  having 
inroads  made  upon  it,  and  in  the  socialised  State 
those  inroads  would  be  greater  still.     But  Socialism 
will  continue  to  regard  the  highest  form  of  sex  rela- 
tionship as  the  union  of  one  man  and  one  woman 
for  life  on  the  basis  of  mutual  respect  and  affection; 
and  it  will  so  frame  the  regulations  relating  to  mar- 
riage and  divorce  as  to  facilitate  that  end  and  re- 
move all  artificial  hindrances  from  its  realisation. 

Prostitution.  —  For   what   have   we   at   present  ? 
Let  those  who  profess  to  tremble  at  the  iconoclastic 


m 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  261 

proposals  of  Socialism  face  the  facts  fairly  and 
squarely.  Modern  Christian  civilisation  has  to  pay 
a  dreadful  price  for  the  outward  integrity  of  its 
family  life.  In  every  great  city  of  the  western  world 
there  exists  a  class  of  women  who  live  by  hiring  them- 
selves to  men  whom  they  do  not  know  and  have 
never  previously  seen,  and  with  whom  their  only 
bond  is  that  of  lust  and  lucre.  In  London  alone  it 
is  estimated  that  the  number  of  these  women  amounts 
to  scores  of  thousands.  Everybody  knows  this, 
and,  in  poHte  society,  pretends  not  to  know  it. 
The  women  of  Christendom  are  thus  divided  into 
two  classes,  those  who  have  a  status  and  those  who 
have  none.  The  former  shrink  in  horror  from  the 
latter,  reprobate  them,  or  ignore  their  existence; 
the  men  regard  the  one  class  as  their  friends  and 
companions,  the  other  as  the  slaves  of  their  passions. 
People  will  tell  you  frankly  that  prostitution  is  a 
necessity  as  human  nature  is  at  present,  a  disagree- 
able necessity,  but  one  of  the  hard  animal  facts  of 
life  that  cannot  be  got  rid  of.  Is  this  true?  I  am 
quite  sure  it  is  not,  and  I  hope  to  be  able  to  show 
that  Socialism  has  a  remedy  to  offer  for  this  evil 
also. 

The  status  of  respectable  women.  —  But  before 
going  on  to  examine  the  causes  which  necessitate 
the  remedy,  let  us  frankly  recognise  that  the  con- 
dition even  of  respectable  womanhood  cannot  be 
deemed  satisfactory  under  our  present  system. 
There  is  widespread  misery  within  the  marriage  tie. 


262       CHRISTIANITY    AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

Women  are  largely  at  the  mercy  of  men,  and  have 
far  less  freedom  of  action  and  range  of  interest  as  a 
rule.  The  ideal  marriage  is  a  rarity,  and  it  is  un- 
questionable that  money  enters  into  the  matter  of 
obtaining  a  husband  even  in  the  most  respectable 
society.  Too  frequently  the  fashionable  bride  sells 
herself  as  really  as  the  unfortunate.  Probably  this 
assertion  ought  to  be  quaUfied  by  adding  that  the 
desire  for  a  husband  and  a  home  are  essentially 
worthier  than  the  mere  desire  for  money  and  excite- 
ment, and  more  consistent  with  self-respect.  But 
if  all  the  heart-burnings,  incompatibiUties,  petty 
miseries  and  scandals  which  are  the  result  of  mar- 
riages entered  into  for  the  sake  of  money  could  be 
eliminated,  the  sad  total  would  be  appreciably 
reduced.  Would  they  be  so  frequent  in  a  socialised 
State?  Again  I  think  not;  and  the  remedy  for 
prostitution  would  not  be  ineffective  even  in  the 
lessening  of  the  likelihood  of  loveless  marriages. 

The  question  of  female  labour.  — Then  take  the 
large  number  of  cases  in  which,  owing  to  various 
reasons,  women  are  unable  to  find  husbands.  The 
mild  contempt  with  which  the  single  woman  used 
to  be  regarded  was  different  from  that  bestowed 
upon  her  fallen  sister,  but  was  not  less  real.  Of 
late  years,  however,  a  change  has  been  coming  over 
modern  society  which  is  doing  something  to  improve 
the  status  of  unmarried  women;  they  are  being 
better  educated  and  coming  out  into  the  world  fully 
equipped  to  earn  their  own  living.    This  is  giving 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  263 

US  a  new  type,  the  type  of  woman  who  is  not  in  a 
hurry  to  tie  herself  up  to  the  comparatively  narrow 
existence  of  domestic  drudgery ;  she  feels  more 
independent  and  acts  accordingly.  But  this  very 
fact  gives  rise  to  fresh  complications;  she  is  ousting 
the  man  from  fields  of  employment  which  he  has 
hitherto  considered  entirely  his  own,  and  there  is  no 
saying  where  this  tendency  is  going  to  stop.  She 
is  proving  herself  just  as  capable  as  her  former  lord 
and  master  of  holding  her  own  in  the  professions 
and  trades,  except  where  sheer  manual  strength 
is  the  desideratum.  But,  so  far,  she  is  cheaper,  for 
she  has  not  a  family  to  support,  and  indirectly 
this  is  a  cause  of  much  hardship;  the  displacement 
of  male  by  female  labour  is  bound  to  mean  under 
present  conditions  the  lowering  of  the  standard  of 
living  among  workers  generally,  unless  measures 
can  be  taken  to  see  that  it  does  not. 

Private  property  at  the  bottom  of  the  disabilities 
of  women.  — These  are  only  the  more  prominent 
aspects  of  an  exceedingly  intricate  and  many-sided 
problem.  What  I  now  wish  to  show  is  that  the 
question  of  private  property  is  always  mixed  up 
with  it,  and  that  there  can  be  no  satisfactory  solu- 
tion outside  Socialism.  For  the  truth  is  that  even 
this  nauseous  problem  of  prostitution  has  an  eco- 
nomic root;  it  springs  from  the  economic  depend- 
ence of  women  upon  men.  This  becomes  obvious 
the  moment  we  ask  ourselves  why  it  is  that  male 
prostitution  would  not  answer  in  such  a  civilisation 


264       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

as  ours.  For  untold  centuries  the  woman  has 
been  not  only  the  dependent,  but  more  or  less  the 
private  property  of  the  man.  In  spite  of  the  glamour 
cast  by  love  upon  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  this 
one  hard  basal  fact  obtrudes  itself  whenever  we 
begin  to  probe  things,  and  ask  the  reason  why  women 
feel  themselves  to  be  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared 
with  the  stronger  sex.  It  is  because  the  man  owns 
what  there  is  to  own;  he  used  to  own  the  woman 
out  and  out;  now  he  only  owns  her  indirectly,  as 
it  were.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  this  state  of 
things  that  we  hardly  ever  pause  to  ask  ourselves 
whether  it  is  the  best  that  could  be  devised,  or  even 
whether  it  bears  hardly  upon  the  less  privileged 
members  of  the  less  privileged  sex.  The  number 
of  women  of  independent  means  is  very  small  in 
this  or  any  other  country.  The  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  sex  are  dependent  upon  their  men- 
folk for  everything  worth  having  in  life,  and  in 
return  they  have  to  render  services  of  various  kinds 
which  are  no  light  matter.  The  daughter  in  the 
family  finds  that  she  has  to  take  a  subordinate 
position  to  the  brother,  look  up  to  him,  and  care 
for  his  creature  comforts.  If  she  be  high  enough 
up  the  social  scale  to  be  able  to  avoid  this  duty, 
she  generally  becomes  a  sort  of  idle  parasite  upon 
the  family  resources,  flitting  like  a  butterfly  from 
one  trifling  means  of  enjoyment  to  another.  There 
is  nothing  much  more  aimless  than  the  life  of  a 
young  woman  of  fairly  good  position  who  has  not 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  265 

found  some  purpose  of  her  own  in  life;  the  average 
comfortable  middle-class  family  is  one  in  which 
all  the  boys  seek  a  profession  as  a  matter  of  course, 
while  the  girls  waste  their  time  hanging  about  the 
house  or  paying  visits.  When  these  become  wives 
their  behaviour  is  probably  not  very  different,  so 
long  as  their  husbands  can  afford  to  keep  them  in 
such  a  position  that  they  are  not  obliged  to  do  any 
menial  work;  they  seldom  have,  or  expect  to  have, 
work  of  their  own  comparable  to  that  of  the  hus- 
band. They  bear  his  children  and  preside  at  his 
table,  but  that  is  about  all;  they  are  expected  to 
be  ornamental,  and  consequently  they  spend  a 
large  proportion  of  their  waking  hours  in  fitting 
themselves  to  be  as  ornamental  as  possible.  Thus, 
the  basal  reason  for  the  fact  that  the  papers  which 
are  read  by  women  have  to  contain  so  much  about 
dress  and  weddings  is  just  this  hard  economic 
necessity  for  pleasing  the  man,  who  has  the  means 
of  giving  or  withholding  the  good  things  of  life. 

Man  is  woman's  capitalist.  —  Lower  down  the 
social  scale  the  case  becomes  still  plainer.  The 
working-man's  wife  is  a  drudge.  Her  lord  may 
complain  of  a  ten  hours'  working  day ;  hers  is  much 
longer.  If  poverty  forces  her  into  the  labour  market 
itself,  she  finds  herself  at  an  overwhelming  disad- 
vantage. If  the  male  wage-earner  is  more  or  less 
at  the  mercy  of  the  capitalist,  the  female  wage-earner 
is  more  or  less  at  the  mercy  of  both.  Taking  the 
matter  through  and  through,  it  may  be  said,  without 


266       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

much  fear  of  contradiction,  that  the  vast  majority 
of  the  women  of  Christendom  stand  in  such  a  rela- 
tion to  the  male  sex  that  the  latter  may  be  regarded 
as  their  capitaUst;  they  have  little  or  no  access  to 
the  sources  of  production,  and  therefore  they  have 
to  remain  in  a  position  of  dependence.  At  the  best 
this  position  of  dependence  is  one  of  respected 
inferiority,  at  the  worst  it  is  hell. 

Private  property  and  prostitution.  —  If  now,  with 
this  broad  general  fact  in  mind,  we  ask  ourselves 
where  prostitution  comes  from,  not  to  speak  of 
the  many  other  disabilities  of  which  women  are 
becoming  increasingly  conscious,  we  need  not  long 
remain  in  doubt  about  the  answer.  Women  are 
driven  to  prostitution  by  the  fact  that  it  is  so  diffi- 
cult to  get  money  in  any  other  way,  and  money  is 
the  one  means  which  will  open  the  door  to  comfort 
and  enjoyment.  The  life  of  the  average  woman 
is  narrow  and  dull  compared  with  that  of  the  man 
in  the  same  station;  she  Ukes  excitement  and  change 
just  as  much  as  he  does,  but  the  necessary  material 
equipment  does  not  so  easily  come  her  way.  Here 
and  there  we  may  find  a  woman  who  has  adopted 
this  dreadful  trade  through  sheer  force  of  animal 
passion,  but  these  can  only  be  a  few  out  of  the  teem- 
ing thousands  in  the  ranks  of  ill  fame.  The  truth 
is,  though  it  may  not  be  pleasant  to  face  it,  that 
many  of  our  notions  about  women  and  the  family 
have  had  a  not  too  creditable  origin.  Why  do 
we  penalise  a  woman  more  than  a  man  for  sur- 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  267 

rendering  her  virginity  outside  wedlock?  If  we 
get  far  enough  back  into  the  dim  shades  of  history 
we  shall  find  that  it  is  due  to  male  selfishness.  Why 
do  we  discriminate  against  the  unfaithful  wife  as 
compared  with  the  unfaithful  husband,  as  is  the 
case  with  our  divorce  law  at  present?  The  real 
reason  is  that  primitive  man  did  not  wish  to  have 
to  work  to  support  other,  people's  children,  and 
he  still  wants  to  make  sure  that  this  undesirable 
task  shall  not  be  thrust  upon  him.  The  plain 
result  is  that  we  take  care  to  have  a  class  of  women 
of  whose  good  behaviour  we  can  feel  fairly  secure,  and 
another  class  of  whom  similar  good  behaviour  is 
not  expected.  Man  demands  both;  hence  he  pays 
for  both,  and  hedges  the  former  class  round  with 
so  many  pains  and  penalties  that  if  an  unfortunate 
individual  offends  he  forthwith  does  his  best  to 
thrust  her  into  the  latter.  Our  practice  in  this 
matter  is  of  such  long  standing  that  we  have  per- 
suaded ourselves  that  it  is  ''moral"  and  "Chris- 
tian." As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  the  meanest,  shab- 
biest, most  selfish  plan  ever  devised  by  selfish  man 
for  keeping  his  hold  on  his  private  property — woman. 
We  have  so  trained  the  whole  female  sex  to  take 
our  point  of  view  in  this  matter  that  our  best  allies 
against  female  offenders  are  women  themselves. 
The  ordinary  woman  without  private  means  or  a 
footing  in  the  professional  or  business  world  has 
before  her  a  kind  of  Hobson's  choice  —  reputable 
or  disreputable  dependence  upon  the  male  sex. 


268       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

Comparative   uselessness   of   rescue   work.  —  All 

this  shows  how  futile  are  the  various  efforts  put 
forth  at  the  present  time  to  deal  with  the  social 
evil,  as  it  is  conventionally  called.  It  is  indeed 
the  social  evil  in  a  sense  unguessed  by  most  of  those 
who  call  it  such.  Religious  organisations  send 
out  hosts  of  pure  and  good  women  to  win,  if  pos- 
sible, their  fallen  sisters  back  to  rectitude;  and 
"  vigilance "  societies  prosecute  the  harpies  who 
beguile  innocent  girls  into  this  mode  of  Ufe.  How 
many  do  they  save?  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  they  make  no  more  impression  upon 
the  gigantic  total  of  misery  and  despair  due  to  this 
cause  than  charitable  organisations  make  upon 
the  problem  of  chronic  poverty.  For  every  victim 
lifted  out  of  one  end  of  the  sewer  a  fresh  one  falls 
in  at  the  other.  Police  regulations  may  drive  the 
traffic  underground,  but  they  cannot  destroy  it 
so  long  as  the  conditions  continue  which  have  made 
it  possible  in  the  first  instance.  What  is  wanted 
is  a  radical  change  in  the  status  of  women,  and  that 
change  is  already  on  the  way.  There  is  no  juster 
or  more  urgent  cause  claiming  the  attention  of  the 
civihsed  world  to-day  than  that  of  female  suffrage, 
and  there  can  be  no  ground  for  opposing  it  other 
than  the  purely  selfish  one  that  its  triumph  would 
mean  the  abolition  of  the  privileged  position  of  the 
man.  In  this  Socialism  sees  with  clear  vision,  and 
maintains,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Founder  of  Christian- 
ity; that  offence  against  the  conventional  rules  of 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  269 

sex-morality  is  not  the  worst  kind  of  offence.  No 
one  can  read  the  gospels  without  being  impressed 
with  the  gentleness  of  Jesus  to  erring  women. 
Was  not  that  gentleness  due  to  His  perception  of 
the  fact  that  they  were  unfairly  punished  as  com- 
pared with  their  betrayers?  Did  He  not  pity  their 
comparative  helplessness  in  the  hands  of  men? 
Socialism,  therefore,  is  closely  in  accord  with  the 
spirit  of  the  true  Christianity  when  it  insists  not 
only  that  men  and  women  should  be  absolutely 
equal  before  the  law  and  enjoy  equal  rights  of 
citizenship,  but  that  the  present  economic  depend- 
ence of  one  sex  upon  the  other  should  come  to  an 
end.  To  gain  the  former  would  in  time  secure  the 
latter,  for  women  know  well  enough  what  they 
want,  when  once  they  have  felt,  as  in  increasing 
numbers  they  are  coming  to  feel,  how  heavily  they 
are  handicapped  in  the  struggle  for  a  living  in 
having  to  compete  with  men.  In  all  the  more 
desirable  fields  of  service  men  retain  the  monopoly, 
and  either  exclude  women  or  admit  them  grudg- 
ingly. Give  women  political  power,  and  in  the 
industrial  reorganisation  which  is  at  hand  they 
will  claim  and  receive  their  due  share.  Every 
woman  ought  to  have  as  full  an  opportunity  as 
the  man  of  serving  society  at  large  and  receiving 
her  share  of  the  communal  income.  There  is  hardly 
any  calling  in  which  she  is  not  already  the  proved 
equal  of  the  man  when  put  to  the  test ;  but,  granted 
that  there  vail  always  be  special  avocations  in  which 


270      CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL  ORDER 

the  one  sex  will  outshine  the  other,  there  is  no  reason 
in  common  justice  or  in  common  sense  why  one 
sex  should  have  to  depend  upon  the  other  for  per- 
mission to  enter  such  a  field  or  for  the  means  of 
subsistence  when  in  it.  Every  girl  should  be  as 
thoroughly  educated,  even  technically,  as  every 
boy,  and  every  female  citizen  in  a  socialised  State 
should  be  entitled  to  do  her  share  in  the  production 
of  the  national  wealth  and  to  receive  her  appropriate 
share  of  the  output.  That  highest  privilege  of 
womankind,  maternity,  ought  not  to  be  excluded 
from  this  provision.  In  any  properly  organised 
community  the  mother  should  be  entitled  to  material 
support  from  the  communal  stores  in  accordance 
with  her  needs  at  the  child-bearing  period.  When 
one  thinks  of  the  conditions  under  which  children 
are  being  brought  into  the  world  to-day  in  poverty- 
stricken  homes  one  can  but  feel  that  the  truest 
economy  in  the  long  run  in  national  efficiency  and 
productive  power  would  be  the  economy  that  put 
the  mothers  of  our  future  citizens  beyond  all  fear 
of  want.  I  have  shown  in  previous  chapters  that 
even  now  this  could  be  effected  if  the  national 
wealth  were  properly  distributed;  even  now  none 
of  England's  mothers  would  need  to  want  if  their 
fair  share  of  the  national  income  were  apportioned 
to  them.  What  would  it  be  under  a  system  in 
which  industry  were  so  organised  as  to  educe  and 
combine  the  best  talent  of  the  many  millions  of 
women  in  this  country   in  addition  to  the  men? 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  271 

At  present  this  is  a  vast  un worked  field.  Unre- 
munerative  toil  in  precarious  positions,  where  the 
little  that  is  earned  has  to  be  eked  out  by  the  wages 
of  shame,  ought  to  be  rendered  impossible  for  ever. 
Neither  should  there  be  any  more  fashionable  idlers; 
woman  ought  to  know  the  joy  of  serving  the  com- 
mon good  as  much  as  man,  and  should  have  no 
more  reason  for  trifling  with  life  than  he.^ 

Marriage  under  Socialism.  —  How  will  this  affect 
the  marriage  bond?  Well,  it  will  not  be  a  bond. 
I  see  no  necessity  for  reserve  on  this  subject,  and 
the  more  plainly  Christian  Socialists  can  speak 
out  the  better.  Our  present  laws  relating  to  mar- 
riage and  divorce  are  anomalous  and  unjust,  and 
the  worst  of  the  situation  is  the  fact  that  ecclesi- 
astical prejudice  is  the  great  stumbling-block  in 
the  way  of  change  for  the  better.  A  good  example 
of  the  kind  of  irrational  prejudice  which  exists  on 
this  subject  is  furnished  by  the  behaviour  of  many 
of  our  bishops  and  clergy  at  the  present  moment  in 
regard  to  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister. 
Their  reason  for  refusing  to  solemnise  such  marriages 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  an  offence  against 
Canon  law  is  the  less  understandable  when  we  realise 
that  the  very  same  Canon  law  is  against  the  clergy 
marrying  at  all  1  Surely  it  is  time  that  such  obscur- 
antism were  made  to  cease  from  its  very  absurdity. 

*The  standard  work  on  this  phase  of  our  subject  is 
"Women  and  Economics,"  by  Charlotte  Perkins  Oilman 
(Putnam's). 


272       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

Probably  we  shall  find  that  the  clergy  will  fight 
tooth  and  nail  against  every  proposal  towards 
affording  relief  to  those  unfortunate  persons  whom 
marriage  has  placed  in  an  intolerable  position. 
The  law  relating  to  marriage  will  have  to  be  made 
stricter  in  the  time  to  come,  and  that  relating  to 
divorce  will  have  to  be  relaxed  and  equalised.  Why 
in  the  world  should  a  good  woman  remain  tied  all 
her  life  to  a  criminal  husband?  At  present  her 
only  chance  of  relief  is  that  he  may  have  been  both 
adulterous  and  cruel.  Even  then  the  relief  is  a 
doubtful  benefit  if  it  involves  the  risk  of  starvation. 
Many  a  woman  would  rather  put  up  with  the  humili- 
ation of  a  husband's  evil  conduct  than  expose  her 
children  to  the  danger  of  having  to  go  without  bread 
by  separating  from  him;  her  legal  claim  upon  his 
purse  is  her  sole  guarantee  that  they  will  not  have 
to  suffer,  so  she  struggles  on  and  bears  it.  But 
what  would  she  do  if  she  could  be  freed  from  such 
a  bondage  without  fear  for  her  own  or  her  children's 
future?  Then  again,  as  things  are,  the  partial 
relief  of  a  judicial  separation  in  the  case  of  an  un- 
happy marriage  is  a  direct  incentive  to  immorality. 
No  sacro-sanct  considerations  should  be  allowed 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  such  necessary  alteration 
of  the  existing  law  as  would  prevent  the  enormous 
amount  of  domestic  unhappiness  which  exists  at 
present  because  of  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  release 
from  an  unworthy  partner.  Infidelity  to  the  mar- 
riage vow  ought  to  be  enough  to  procure  divorce 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  273 

if  the  case  were  proved  by  either  party;  and,  once 
all  economic  considerations  were  eliminated  from 
the  question  of  marriage,  there  would  no  longer 
be  any  reason  why  the  law  should  compel  any  one 
to  continue  in  conjugal  relations  with  a  person 
whose  conduct  was  a  constant  source  of  humilia- 
tion and  distress.  The  emancipation  of  women 
from  economic  dependence  upon  men  would  render 
many  of  the  latter  more  careful  of  their  conduct 
and  less  heedless  of  the  consequences. 

The  family  of  the  future.  —  Nor  is  it  at  all  prob- 
able that  such  a  readjustment  of  the  relations  be- 
tween the  sexes  would  lead  to  the  break-up  of  the 
family.  The  forces  which  hold  the  family  together 
are  not  merely  economic  or  magisterial;  if  they 
were  we  might  indeed  fear  for  the  future  of  society. 
The  institution  which  has  to  be  maintained  by 
restrictive  enactments  is  not  on  a  sound  basis,  and 
cannot  be  trusted  to  be  of  permanent  benefit  to 
the  race.  It  sometimes  seems  to  me  that  those 
who  resist  legal  changes  are  in  danger  of  forgetting 
this.  What  earthly  good  does  it  do  to  hold  men 
and  women  together  or  safeguard  the  integrity  of 
the  family  by  the  power  of  the  law  court?  The 
object  of  the  law  should  be  to  safeguard  the  weak, 
and,  in  a  state  of  society  where  the  economic  basis 
of  marriage  was  different,  that  duty  would  not 
need  to  be  exercised  to  the  same  extent  as  at  present. 
But  a  new  set  of  duties  would  emerge.  The  State 
would  insist  on  the  regulation  of  marriages  to  a 


274       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

greater  extent  than  is  now  dreamed  of,  and  such 
regulation  would  be  justified  on  the  ground  that 
society  as  a  whole  had  a  direct  interest  in  the  sort 
of  children  that  were  hkely  to  be  brought  into  the 
world  as  the  result  of  such  marriages.  This  is  a 
point  of  view  which  is  at  present  hardly  ever  taken. 
How  far  it  could  be  pressed  must,  for  a  long  while 
to  come,  remain  a  matter  of  opinion.  Those  who 
burden  the  community  with  illegitimate  children, 
or  who  wantonly  offend  against  the  marriage  vow, 
are  dangerous  to  the  common  weal,  and  should 
be  more  severely  dealt  with  than  at  present.  The 
rights  of  citizenship  should  be  withheld  from  all 
who  trifle  with  its  responsibilities  in  any  such  way, 
and  there  should  be  no  discrimination  between  the 
sexes  in  regard  to  the  penalty  inflicted.  That 
these  penalties  would  not  be  inoperative  is  proved 
by  the  greater  continence  of  the  female  sex  at  the 
present  time;  men  could  exercise  just  as  much 
self-restraint  if  they  had  the  same  well-founded 
fear  of  consequences.  There  would  be  no  need 
to  safeguard  the  integrity  of  the  family;  it  would 
safeguard  itself.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that, 
while  human  nature  remains  what  it  is,  the  one 
man  will  cease  to  seek  out  the  one  woman  with 
whom  he  can  be  happiest  and  join  hands  with  her 
in  solemn  wedlock  for  the  making  of  a  home.  The 
coming  of  the  child  is,  in  addition  to  a  mutually 
respecting  love,  the  most  powerful  force  that  could 
be  imagined  for  keeping  the  home  together.    That 


THE   SOCIALISED  STATE  275 

man  and  woman  and  child  should  continue  to  love 
each  other,  and  to  regard  home  as  the  sweetest 
place  on  earth,  will  only  be  what  we  should  expect 
in  a  state  of  society  wherein  the  general  level  of 
culture  and  inteUigence  would  be  much  higher  than 
at  present,  and  from  which  all  artificial  restraints 
would  be  removed.  It  is  not  law  but  love  that 
makes  home;  and  greater  freedom  and  independ- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  wife  and  mother,  and  greater 
sense  of  responsibiHty  to  the  State  on  the  part  of 
the  husband  and  father,  will  never  tend  to  lessen 
love,  but  rather  to  increase  it. 

"The  love  that  follows  fain 
Will  never  its  faith  betray; 
But  the  faith  that  is  held  in  a  chain 
Will  never  be  found  again 
If  a  single  link  give  way." 

The  Poor  Law.  — The  mention  of  pauperism 
opens  up  another  phase  of  our  general  subject  in 
which  public  opinion  is  nearly  ripe  for  strong  action. 
Our  present  Poor  Law  system  is  a  scandal.  In  an 
efficiently  sociaUsed  State  we  should  not  need  a 
Poor  Law ;  its  presence  is  a  testimony  to  the  baleful 
effects  of  IndividuaUsm.  But,  even  for  its  present 
purpose,  it  is  both  wasteful  and  ineffective.  It 
spends  far  too  much  money  on  officiaUsm,  and  far 
too  Uttle  in  ameliorating  the  lot  of  the  deserving 
poor.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  deserv- 
ing poor  could  really  be  helped  under  such  a  system, 


276       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

a  system  which  is  humiliating  and  degrading  to  the 
self-respecting  recipient  of  relief.  It  is  only  as  a 
last  resort  that  the  really  industrious  poor  are  forced 
into  the  workhouse  in  their  declining  years.  To 
bring  up  children  in  such  an  atmosphere  is  mon- 
strous. One  welcome  sign  of  the  times  is  the  pres- 
sure which  is  being  brought  to  bear  upon  local 
authorities  to  have  indigent  orphans  and  the  children 
of  pauper  parents  educated  along  with  other  children 
in  the  ordinary  public  school.  But,  in  order  to 
strike  at  the  pauper  system,  society  will  have  to 
provide  against  unemployment  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  poverty  of  old  age  on  the  other.  Both  these 
desirable  innovations  are  already  within  measurable 
distance,  and  are  receiving  support  from  many  per- 
sons who  would  not  call  themselves  Socialists.  I 
have  already  indicated  the  principle  of  action  by 
which  unemployment  could  be  dealt  with,  namely, 
the  provision  of  works  of  public  utiUty  which  could 
stop  or  go  on  according  to  the  demand  for  labour 
in  the  several  trades.  In  the  sociaUsed  State  such 
fluctuation  in  demand  would  be  certain  to  continue, 
though  not  to  the  same  degree  as  at  present,  owing 
to  the  comparative  absence  of  haphazard  production. 
When  once  we  get  old  age  pensions  of  an  amount 
sufficient  to  maintain  the  recipient  in  a  fair  standard 
of  comfort,  we  shall  have  struck  at  the  root  of  most 
that  makes  for  pauperism.  The  class  of  the  un- 
employed is  always  tending  to  produce  the  unem- 
ployable, because  of  the  gradual  lowering  of  the 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  277 

standard  of  physical  efficiency  in  those  who  fall 
into  it,  as  well  as  the  encouragement  of  habits  of 
idleness  and  unthriftiness;  meet  the  problem  at  the 
fountain-head,  and  we  should  have  dammed  up 
one  of  the  most  prolific  of  the  sources  of  pauperism. 
Outside  these  two  classes  of  the  aged  poor  and  the 
unemployed  we  have  the  class  of  the  habitual  crimi- 
nal and  idler;  the  place  for  these  is  not  the  same 
institution  as  the  general  worker,  but  a  penal  habi- 
tation, which  they  would  learn  to  dread  even  more 
than  they  dread  the  semi-penal  regulations  of  the 
workhouse  now.  In  the  sociahsed  State  there 
would  be  no  excuse  for  such  persons.  How  it  is 
that  we  have  gone  on  so  long  without  attempting 
to  discriminate  between  the  unfortunate  worker  and 
the  habitual  idler  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  our 
civiHsed  procedure.  I  have  not  mentioned  the 
sick,  because  in  any  thoroughly  organised  State 
the  national  hospitals  would  not  maintain  a  pre- 
carious existence  by  voluntary  contributions  as  now, 
but  would  come  upon  public  funds  and  be  publicly 
administered,  like  other  departments  of  communal 
service. 

The  public  house.  — There  remains  the  public- 
house.  Extreme  temperance  reformers  need  not 
imagine  that  they  are  ever  going  to  abolish  the 
public-house;  no  one  can  abolish  it.  It  meets  a 
need  which  will  be  as  urgently  felt  in  the  future  as 
in  the  present.  But  at  present,  to  employ  an  Irish- 
ism, the  public-house  is  not  a  public-house;    it  is 


278       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

a  private  house,  publicly  used,  but  privately  managed 
and  run  for  private  profit.  Probably  most  of  the 
evils  associated  with  it  are  due  to  this  fact;  it  is 
to  the  interest  of  the  liquor  seller  to  get  people  to 
drink  as  much  as  possible,  and,  as  long  as  that  is 
so,  legal  restrictions  and  regulations  will  continue 
to  be  evaded.  There  is  only  one  remedy  which  a 
Socialist  can  consistently  propose,  and  that  is  that 
the  public-house  should  be  a  pubUc-house;  the 
ownership  and  management  should  be  taken  com- 
pletely out  of  private  hands  and  vested  in  the  com- 
munity for  public  convenience.  If  this  were  done, 
there  would  be  no  reason  why  the  public-house  as  a 
social  centre  should  be  less  reputable  than  the  Post 
Office  or  the  Town  Hall  for  their  respective  pur- 
poses. The  sale  of  intoxicants  might  even  be  pro- 
hibited if  public  opinion  were  ripe  for  it. 

Towards  the  higher  life.  —  But  these  are  only 
administrative  changes  which  are  already  being 
effectively  agitated.  In  stating  them  I  have  no 
other  purpose  in  view  than  to  show  that  they  are 
practical,  and  consistent  with  the  principles  of 
Socialism  and  Christianity.  If  what  has  been 
said  in  the  latter  part  of  this  book  commends 
itself  to  the  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of  the 
reader,  let  me  ask  him  to  consider  its  connection 
with  the  aim  and  purpose  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
Neither  our  Lord  nor  His  followers  thought  of 
material  good  as  more  than  a  means  to  an  end. 
What   they   looked   forward   to   was   the   reign   of 


THE    SOCIALISED   STATE  279 

peace  and  good-will  in  an  ideal  world  in  which 
every  individual  would  be  the  servant  of  all. 
In  a  series  of  aphorisms  Jesus  insisted  upon 
this  so  strongly  that  His  words  may  fairly  be 
regarded  as  the  spiritual  presentation  of  the  aims 
of  modern  Socialism.  The  spiritual  ideal  of 
Jesus  made  the  fullest  demand  upon  the  indi- 
vidual, but  always  for  the  sake  of  society. 
Losing  the  life  to  find  it  meant  with  Him  nothing 
other  than  finding  one's  true  joy  in  the  service 
of  the  common  good.  Does  the  present  organi- 
sation of  society  permit  such  a  motive  to  operate 
unhindered?  Is  it  true  that  the  average  man 
feels  himself  able  to  express  his  very  best  in  the 
service  of  the  whole?  Is  it  not  rather  the  truth 
that  in  most  of  us  there  are  possibilities  dammed 
up  which  will  never  find  expression  so  long  as 
the  present  struggle  for  existence  continues? 
How  many  of  us  have  leisure  and  opportunity 
to  be  to  the  world  what  we  sometimes  dream 
we  might  have  been?  What  Gray  said  of  the 
country  churchyard  could  be  said  of  the  work- 
house and  the  slum  — 

"Some  mute,  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest; 
Some  Cromwell,  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood." 

In  our  best  and  most  generous  moments  would 
we  not  all  say  that  it  were  better  for  the  world, 
better  for  the  sum  of  human  happiness,  that  the 
fetters  should  be  struck  away  which  prevent  the 


28o       CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL   ORDER 

Milton  from  singing  and  the  Cromwell  from 
leading?  Unquestionably  we  should;  the  only 
thing  about  which  we  should  disagree  would  be 
whether,  considered  in  the  cold  light  of  reason, 
the  change  were  practicable,  and  could  be  exe- 
cuted without  danger  of  chaos  and  ruin. 

Well,  it  would  be  a  great  deal  to  have  got 
even  as  far  as  this,  to  see  clearly  what  is  wanted 
and  to  desire  that  it  should  be  realised.  What 
is  wanted,  after  all,  is  only  what  a  few  people 
wanted  so  earnestly  twenty  centuries  ago  that 
when  they  listened  to  the  greatest  Teacher  the 
world  has  ever  had  they  began  to  believe  it 
possible;  and,  in  later  days,  when  He  was  gone 
from  them,  wove  the  garland  of  their  gratitude 
around  His  very  cradle,  and  uttered  their  ideal 
in  the  angel-song:  "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  amongst  men." 

The  utmost  for  the  whole.  —  This  is  precisely 
what  Socialism  is  aiming  at  now,  and  I  call  upon 
all  who  reverence  the  name  of  the  great  Master  of 
mankind  to  aid  in  the  endeavour  to  realise  it.  It 
means  the  bringing  of  a  higher  set  of  motives 
into  play.  To  a  certain  extent  these  higher 
motives  are  operating  now,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  the  lives  of  the  poor  and  unfortunate, 
but  their  expression  is  hampered  and  crushed 
by  the  grim  necessity  of  fighting  for  a  footing 
in  life.  I  mean  the  motives  of  generosity,  com- 
radeship, public  spirit,  and  the  joy  of  self-giving 


THE    SOCIALISED   STATE  281 

for  the  common  good.  We  could  appeal  with 
confidence  to  these  motives,  for  they  are  the 
deepest  and  noblest  in  human  nature;  they  are 
that  which  stamp  it  divine.  It  is  a  tribute  to 
our  common  humanity  that  under  such  sordid 
and  evil  conditions  as  those  which  govern  our 
social  life  to-day  we  are  able  to  witness  these 
nobler  motives  at  work  even  now.  When,  for 
example,  a  man  of  culture  and  genius  like  John 
Ruskin  writes  a  book  of  the  order  of  "  Unto  This 
Last,"  his  motive  is  not  money-getting,  but  the 
desire  of  service.  Happily  he  did  not  need  to 
take  the  money  motive  into  consideration.  When 
a  great  artist  like  G.  F.  Watts  paints  a  great 
picture,  he  does  so  without  any  desire  for 
material  reward,  but  only  with  the  object  of 
uttering  his  best  and  highest  for  the  enrichment 
of  the  common  life.  He  would  tell  you  that  no 
true  artist  should  ever  be  dominated  by  any  other 
motive ;  if  he  has  to  descend  to  producing  in 
order  to  sell,  the  quality  of  his  work  must  neces- 
sarily suffer.  When  a  great  statesman  Uke  Lord 
SaHsbury  spends  himself  day  and  night  in  the 
pubUc  service,  his  chiefest  reward  is  not  that  he 
has  won  a  certain  position  and  means  to  keep  it, 
come  what  may,  but  that  as  the  trustee  of  the 
public  well-being  he  has  succeeded  in  achieving 
something,  the  benefits  of  which  will  be  even 
more  evident  in  the  future  than  in  the  present. 
When  an  hour  of  national  danger  strikes,  every 


282        CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   SOCIAL   ORDER 

free  man  rallies  to  the  flag,  not  for  pay,  but  for 
patriotism.  In  all  these  various  ways,  and  in 
others  too  numerous  to  mention,  we  are  ever 
recognising  that  the  highest  aim  for  the  individual 
is  the  impersonal  one,  and  we  see  it  at  its  best 
when  it  involves  not  merely  self-sacrifice,  but 
self-expression.  Why  should  ordinary  everyday 
life,  especially  that  overwhelmingly  large  part  of 
it  in  which  men  are  engaged  in  earning  a  live- 
lihood, be  excepted  from  the  operation  of  this 
principle?  Why  should  it  not  hold  as  good  for 
our  industrial  life  as  for  anything  else?  We 
only  need  to  ask  ourselves  the  question  in  order 
to  see  whither  the  answer  would  lead  us.  It  is 
because  it  stands  for  this  great  spiritual  principle 
that  Socialism  is  making  its  appeal  so  powerfully 
to  the  conscience  and  heart  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion. But  is  not  this  the  message  of  Jesus,  not 
in  detail,  but  in  principle?  It  is  not  the  whole 
Gospel,  for  it  does  not  profess  any  concern  for 
the  destiny  of  the  individual  in  those  higher 
spheres  which,  as  most  of  us  believe,  and  evidence 
is  beginning  to  demonstrate,  await  us  in  the 
regions  beyond  the  change  called  death.  But, 
even  in  primitive  Christianity,  immortal  life,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  not  quite  what  it  is  to  modern 
thought  and  expectation;  and  yet  it  was  always 
assumed  as  the  most  potent  reason  for  seeking  to 
help  mankind  here.  That  reason  holds  just  as 
good  to-day.     Salvation  must  include  the  develop- 


THE   SOCIALISED   STATE  283 

ment  of  the  whole  man.  If  he  be  ignorant  and 
degraded  here,  ignorant  and  degraded  he  will 
begin  on  the  further  side  of  death;  and  I  can 
imagine  no  motive  so  strong,  in  the  effort  to 
realise  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  as  the 
conviction  that  because  the  individual  soul  is 
immortal  it  should  be  helped  to  find  the  fullest 
self-expression  here  in  order  that  it  may  begin  on 
a  higher  level  elsewhere.  It  is  this  spiritual  end 
which  should  bid  us  welcome  the  efforts  of 
SociaUsm  to  ameliorate  the  lot  of  the  masses  and 
make  a  true  individuality  possible  for  each  and  all. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  Socialism  does 
not  look  for  a  statical  condition  of  society,  nor 
does  it  profess  to  be  able  to  cure  all  the  ills  that 
flesh  is  heir  to.  Pain  and  sorrow  will  probably 
always  find  a  place  in  earthly  life,  but  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  take  for  granted  that  they 
will  always  be  the  shadow  upon  life  that  they 
are  now.  The  normal  life  should  be  the  life  of 
brightness  and  joy.  And  this  is  the  life  which  is 
in  the  gift  of  that  greater  day  which  is  already 
on  the  horizon,  when  the  motives  of  greed  and 
fear  will  have  passed  away  for  ever  by  the  coming 
of  a  social  order  in  which  there  shall  no  longer  be 
any  room  for  them.  Let  us  join  hands  and  hearts 
in  the  endeavour  to  hasten  that  day  by  every 
means  in  our  power.  The  rich  man  will  lose 
nothing  that  he  has  now,  and  he  will  gain  im- 
measurably   in     the    joy    of    seeing    everywhere 


284        CHRISTIANITY   AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

around  him  a  contented  and  happy  people,  his 
brothers  and  equals.  To  the  poor  it  will  mean 
the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  uttered  in  the  name 
of  Jesus:  **  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life 
and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 
To  all  alike  it  will  be  the  fulfilment  of  the  prayer 
of  Jesus,  "  That  they  all  may  be  one." 


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